You Are Rorschach
by atheneblue
Summary: She closed her eyes and heard the sound of rustling cloth. Then she gasped, suffocating in the dark smell of HIM. She opened her eyes, and Rorschach stared back at her." Rated M for language, drug references, D/s relationship, and sexuality.
1. Chapter 1

He watched her low-top black Chuck Taylors pad around the floor of the diner. It was almost soothing, the movement of her shoes as she moved from table to counter to table. Staring at the sneakers, he could safely glimpse her slim ankles and strong calves; he was not ogling her body, just enjoying the rhythm of her steps. He watched the Converses walking toward him and looked up in time to see her topping off his coffee.

"Anything else, Mr. Kovacs?" Arete asked. Her manner toward him, as always, was pleasant but simple. No annoying chatter. No brash teasing, even aimed at a regular like him. The waitress was too nosy by half, though. She was always trying to peek over his shoulder at his newspaper or his notes. The first time she did it, he had wanted to fling her petite frame across the diner.

"Is that a code of some sort?" she had asked, squinting down at his notebook. _Is that even English?_ she had been thinking.

His expressionless stare had been enough to warn her off then, but his intimidation factor seemed to be diminishing over time. The waitress was more circumspect about her insufferable snooping, at any rate.

He shook his head, smoothing out his newspaper. The black sneakers scuffed a little closer. His eyes wandered back to the article facing up: "Russians Pick Up Supernatural Experiments Where Hitler Left Off."

"Is that _you_?" Arete asked. Her voice dropped discreetly: "I didn't know you wrote for the _New Frontiersman_." The final words were practically an undertone.

His gloved hand spidered over the byline. "Surprised?"

"Yes," she admitted, smiling. "But sometimes I like surprises."

"Waitress!"

He watched the Converses pad away.

This was only the twelfth time Rorschach had followed her home. It was primarily self-interest, naturally; she was a good waitress, despite her nosiness, and he did not feel like having to adapt to a new server at the Gunga Diner. This was a dangerous city, as he well knew, especially for a young woman walking alone late at night. And she was such a tiny thing.

His concern was justified tonight as Arete crossed the street and disappeared behind a large van, without re-appearing on the sidewalk. Stepping closer, he heard voices.

"...straight a long time, Shiv. This isn't my scene anymore."

Rorschach crouched behind the bumper of a parked car. He could see Arete talking to a group of men. She appeared to be addressing one in particular: a tall, slim Knotzi wearing a leather jacket and jeans too short to touch the top of his boots.

"Gonna try to recruit me to your merry band of clean and sober fags?" the tall man (presumably "Shiv") asked as he proffered a small, clear baggie. His buddies giggled, the shadows of their topknots bobbing on the asphalt.

Darkness shrouded Arete's face. "Trying to get you to a meeting would suggest that I gave a shit what happens to you. I don't." She ignored the baggie in his hand.

"You used to give a lot more than a shit." Shiv grinned lewdly.

Arete sighed and pushed past him. "I used to do a lot of things."

One of the Knotzis, shorter and broader than Shiv, knocked her back against the doors of the van. Rorschach tensed.

"Don't be a jackass," she insisted tiredly. "This is a public street."

"Think someone's gonna stop us? Think someone's gonna save you?"

"That's the katies talking. Go home before you do something really stupid."

The tall man shrugged. "We can do this the easy way, kiddo, even if you won't put out for horse anymore," the tall man said. "Everybody's got their price. What's yours?"

"Screw you, Shiv."

"Such a foul mouth..." Shiv's voice was silky as he loomed over her. His lanky frame had at least a foot on her petite frame. Rorschach wondered if she even weighed a hundred pounds.

Arete closed her eyes and pressed herself against the van. "Please don't do this."

"Some girls think it's hot: to have a man pay money for them."

"Fuck that, Shiv. Let's just do her."

Shiv put up a hand to his comrade, but his eyes remained on Arete's face. Her eyes were squeezed shut. "How much are you worth?"

***

Arete heard some scuffling and a grunt. One of the men cried out, and something large dented a car. Terrified, she opened her eyes to see two of the Knotzis sprinting down the sidewalk away from her. The stocky man lay draped across a car parked behind the van; he was not moving. A dark shape sprawled on top of Shiv, pounding him with leaden fists so hard that his head bounced off the asphalt at each blow.

Bile rose into Arete's throat. She swallowed it down.

The strange assailant looked up at her from his perch atop his prostrate foe. Arete gasped at the face which observed her from underneath his fedora. Properly speaking, it was not a face. For a panicked moment she saw a bleached skull with black cavities where eyes and flesh should have been. The gruesome head tilted slightly, like a bird's. She feared that he would spring at her, perhaps to kill her, perhaps to make her like him.

Then Arete realized her mistake. The black and white swirls resolved into a mask, a piece of fabric which covered a face bookended very normally by a hat and a trenchcoat.

"Are you a whore?" the mask asked. The voice was low and rusty as if from disuse. It was also vaguely familiar.

"No!" she insisted, eyes wide. "They just came toward me, and I didn't recognize Shiv until he got close. I..." her voice failed for a moment under his dispassionate examination of her. "I used to know him."

"Do you have any narcotics on you?"

Arete shook her head wildly.

The man rose and stepped toward her. She backed into the street.

"He...he was going to-"

"Wait for the police. If you want."

"What do I tell them?" She glanced from the carnage on the sidewalk to the masked man, and the penny dropped. "You're Rorschach, aren't you?"

The wail of sirens erupted from several blocks away. Suddenly he flung his arm out and grabbed her jacket.

"Wha-?" Arete gasped, as Rorschach pulled her toward him. A car barreled by, right where she had been standing; she was so flustered that she had not even heard it approaching. Momentum toppled her toward his body, but he stopped her before she collided with him. His leather-gloved hands were warm and strong on her arms. She dragged in a deep breath and smelled a dark cocktail of odors: blood, sweat, adrenaline, and something like wet autumn leaves.

"That's twice in five minutes!" she exclaimed unnecessarily.

"Just go home," he muttered, as if to say that there would not be a third.

The sirens were coming closer. Rorschach released her arms. Arete nodded and hurried onto the sidewalk, sidestepping Shiv's prostrate form.

"Neither of us was here," she agreed. "You_ definitely_ weren't. But thanks anyway!" She grinned at him. She watched him back athletically into a dark alley, then she sped home.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hope you aren't sick of my OC yet...btw, her name is pronounced to rhyme with "charity".

He glared down at the girl standing in his doorway.

The waitress from the Gunga Diner. Arete. She wore black jeans and a plain white t-shirt. A red bandanna covered her hair. Her left hand clutched a blue plastic bucket, the weight of which forced her shoulders askew.

"Mr. Kovacs," Arete said in the tone of someone greeting an acquaintance on the street. Her brown eyes were wide but calm. Her lips curved in that almost-smile that always played around her mouth.

He stared blankly.

Her gaze played past him, peeking into his apartment. He watched her absorb the dirty dishes and empty cans piled on the crooked table, the bare bulb dangling nakedly from the stained ceiling, the curling stacks of newspapers. He saw his living space with her eyes.

He raised his right hand and rested it on the doorframe.

Arete cleared her throat. "I owe you a thanks. Thought I could make it up to you." She lifted the bucket slightly to indicate its contents: rags, a sponge, bottles of cleaning solution.

A twitch raced from his mouth to his eyes. "You don't owe me anything," he rasped.

"Yes, I do," she insisted, raising her eyebrows as if to communicate by some secret means.

He shook his head and backed to shut the door.

Arete stuck her booted foot between the frame and the closing door. She looked up and down the hall quickly. "You have a very interesting face, Mr. Kovacs." Her voice was a hurried undertone as she cocked her head, eyebrows arching deliberately. "The kind of face that a person could read anything they want into."

A sound like a growl escaped the red-haired man's throat.

She searched his eyes. "You show me nothing; I see what I want."

He grabbed the hem of her shirt and dragged her into his room. The bucket clattered to the floor as he slammed the door shut and backed her against it. The inside of her nose prickled at the rotten-leaves smell of the apartment and the sour sweat odor of the man himself.

"What do you know?" he barked.

Arete shrank from the still blue disinterest of his eyes. Her eyes flickered to his strong, calloused hands. His shoulders were broad, his neck muscles corded with anger.

_This was a bad idea..._

"Please," she begged, ashamed of her fear. "It was your voice!"

He stepped back, lifting his chin, and pondered for a moment. "Unlikely," he finally muttered.

Arete felt a trickle of sweat course down between her shoulder blades. "But true," she dared. She declined to mention the familiar, if somewhat unpleasant, smell she had detected on Rorschach. The same odor which now filled her nose.

He turned away, scratching his jaw and muttering to himself. His feet weaved among the tottering stacks of newspaper unerringly.

The woman bit her lip, then leaned down to draw a trash bag from the bucket. She unfolded the black plastic and shook it open. She willed herself to calm down and began to pluck refuse from the table. The thunk of an empty can hitting the floor as it fell to the bottom of the trash bag roused the red-haired man from his reverie.

"What are you doing?"

Arete did not respond. She continued her task, barely blinking as a roach scuttled out from beneath the plate nearest her hand. _Kinda wish I'd brought gloves_, she thought ruefully. Setting down the trash bag, she began to carry plates and utensils to the sink.

The man regarded her in amazement. She began to run water from the tap, wondering how hot it might get. She let it flow and returned to the bucket for a sponge and a bottle of dish detergent. Arete almost laughed at the thunderstruck look on his face. He practically radiated curiosity.

"Possibly insane?" he mused.

She did laugh at that.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and paced a few steps. Then he took a seat at the chair by the table. Arete turned back from the sink and smiled. She wanted to challenge him. _Tell me 'no',_ she would say. _Tell me to get the hell out. _But something inside warned her not to taunt him. So she kept her smile pleasant and neutral, as she had the first day she had served him at the Gunga Diner. Even then she had sensed something powerful about him.

"Don't need this."

Arete looked around the apartment pointedly. "Yeah, I think you do," she responded, struggling to restrain the insolence that threatened to tinge her voice.

"I don't need this." The red-haired man flexed his fingers, avoiding her eyes. "Rorschach doesn't need this."

She blinked. "You are Rorschach."

His face told her nothing as his gaze swung up to meet hers. After a long moment during which he moved not at all, Arete turned back to the sink and, grabbing a filthy bowl, plunged it under the now reasonably-hot water.


	3. Chapter 3

"Goddamnit!" she cursed, baring her teeth in a wince.

He looked up from his notes with an expression that, on an ordinary person, would have expressed only mild interest. On his face, Arete had come to realize, it meant extreme disturbance. His body was tense as a rod. Was it the suddenness of her outcry that upset him so? Her foul language?

"Splinter," she explained. Arete rose and moved under the light bulb to better examine her hand. He stood too, hovering near her awkwardly like a child with a full bladder. She prodded the puncture with her fingernail. "It's broken off inside. Do you have a needle?"

His lips twitched in something like amusement. Opening one of the kitchen drawers, he extracted a pincushion and a matchbook. He lit one of the matches and held the tip of the needle inside the flame for a count of thirty.

Obediently, Arete laid her injured hand on the countertop.

He knit his brow. "You trust me to do that?"

"I think your hands are steadier than mine."

He shrugged and maneuvered himself into a position where he could both see the splinter and get at it with the needle held dexterously in the fingers of his left hand. His body was closer to hers than, she suspected, he would have liked. He leaned down to inspect the tiny wound.

"I trust you with my life. Why wouldn't I trust you with a splinter?" Her voice indicated that the question was rhetorical.

Gently but efficiently, he dug into the top layers of skin to extract the splinter. Arete tried not to flinch.

"Is there some reason I shouldn't trust you?" she continued, trying to keep her mind off the sharp instrument plumbing her flesh.

"You don't think I'm dangerous?" he murmured into her hand.

She snorted. "I _know_ you're dangerous. I know you'd snap my neck like any of the poor suckers down there if I stepped over the line."

He grunted.

"But, since I'm not planning on murder, rape, or robbery..." She trailed off.

He paused from the minor surgery for a moment. "You're not from the city." His head turned slightly so his eyes could flick toward her.

Arete was not sure how to respond to the _non sequitur_. "Uhh, no. I came up for college."

"But you didn't get your degree."

"No."

"Why?"

She winced as the needle dug in further. "You know why."

"Drugs."

Arete nodded, forgetting he could not see the motion.

"The city poisoned you," he concluded, finally liberating the tiny shard of wood.

She smiled. "But you're drawing the poison out of me." She turned to the sink and began to wash her hands, scrubbing the cut on her finger in particular. When she turned, he was already back at the table, scribbling notes.

Arete walked over and knelt on the floor next to him. She relaxed, allowing her eyes to unfocus.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you, sir," she replied calmly.

"Waiting for me to do what?"

"For you to need something. If you are thirsty, I'll get you a drink. If you are hungry, I'll fix you some food. Anything you need I'll get for you."

He crossed his legs and peered at her curiously. "And do what in the meantime?"

"Wait, sir," she responded simply. "I'll just...wait."

He leaned forward. "I don't want this."

"You don't want me to serve you, sir?" Arete still did not look up.

"Why would _you_ want to serve _me_?"

"It's a gift, sir. Use it as you will, sir."

He sighed and turned back to his notes. He wondered how long it would take her to tire of this nonsense.


	4. Chapter 4

At first he found it disconcerting when she knelt beside him as he wrote. He was hyper-aware of her presence, of her nearness to his leg. Her breathing distracted him; her faint scent kept his recollections at bay.

But gradually he became accustomed to it. He did not tune her out, exactly; he simply adapted. It no longer startled him when she asked permission to shift positions. If he was thirsty or hungry, wanted the window open or shut, needed a particular article extracted from his newspapers, he did not hesitate to ask. And when he asked, his need would be met. Quickly. Silently. Efficiently. As much as he wanted to, he could perceive no resentment in her attitude. There was only the simple pleasure of service.

Today the early afternoon sun was baking the city into submission. He was not looking forward to donning his coat and tie for work. Arete had arrived on his doorstep wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts, and he could not fault her for it. Besides, the skirt of her diner uniform revealed almost as much of her legs.

Almost.

She cleaned for an hour, scrubbing the kitchen cabinets of their congealed grease, then moved to assume her position at his knee. As she knelt, the bottom edge of her shorts rode up. He wanted to look away from the soft, hot flesh of her thighs. Her legs were so strong and muscular.

Then his eyes were caught by the redness of a scar. He squinted, watching the welts form themselves into letters.

"What is that?"

Arete glanced up, startled. There was a smudge of newsprint on her cheek. The damp hairs at the back of her neck had curled up, escaping under the cover of her bandanna. "What's what?"

"You will speak respectfully," he stated, then crouched next to her and pulled her knees apart. Arete's mouth dropped open in shock as his fingers probed the scars on the inside of her left thigh. He pried back the hem of her shorts, pushing it higher to expose the marking in its entirety.

"Who did this?" he demanded, staring down at the scar.

Arete gaped at the top of his head. When he lifted his face, it was only inches from her own. She recognized a slight hardness in his jaw, a tiny wrinkle between his brows. His skin was rough and ruddy from the sun. The tips of his ears were pink.

The words refused to leave Arete's mouth.

He looked down again and traced the shapes on her thigh with his fingertip. "A few years old. Reasonably deep. Precise. No hesitation marks or signs of struggle." His mouth pursed in contemplation.

Arete took a deep breath, inhaling the rich odor of the oil-soap she had been using on the cabinets. The red-haired man's scent had become so familiar she hardly noticed it anymore. Flashing thoughts coursed through her mind. She wanted to punch him, kiss him, rend the cartilage of his ear between her teeth, tear the shirt from his muscular torso.

"Answer me," he ordered.

Instead, she pushed him away and backed furiously on hands and knees until she butted up against the chair, which tipped onto the floor with a dull thud. "I didn't want you to see that," she managed, gasping. She could hear her blood roaring in her ears. Her face burned. Her eyes focused on the pink scars, seeing them now as if for the first time.

_Filthy bitch_.

Arete glanced up, and it was as if she saw the words etched in his flame-blue eyes. She shook her head as tears rose to blur her vision. Pain flared in the scars like it had when the wounds were fresh. She felt again the razor blade whispering through her flesh, the blood welling in its wake and trickling down her thigh to stain her underpants.

_Filthy bitch_.

"Who did it?" he insisted. His stillness was eerie.

She screwed up her face and groaned.

He stood and approached her carefully, as if she were a wild animal. Then he rested his fingers lightly on her shoulder and indicated with his chin that she should follow him. Arete rose and trailed him into the tiny bathroom. He flipped on the light. With the barest of touches he guided her in front of the mirror. When she would not look at herself, he grunted and cocked her chin up with a knuckle. He looked from her face to her reflection. Arete regarded herself morosely in the mirror. She saw bleary eyes with dark circles under them, a snuffly nose red from tears; her skin looked patchy and uneven in the sickly light of the overhead bulb.

The muscles of her reflection's face went slack. She stared emptily back at herself as if she had borrowed _his _blank affect. He pulled the bandanna from her head. Her short dark hair was matted down in some places, stuck up in crazy cowlicks in others.

In the mirror Arete saw him lean toward her, his lips approaching her ear. Stray hairs stirred at his breath. "Who?" he whispered.

_My mask_, she thought. _It's perfect. Don't make me ruin it by speaking._

She closed her eyes.

She heard the sound of rustling cloth. Then she gasped, suffocating in the dark smell of _him_. She opened her eyes, and Rorschach stared back at her.

Arete cried out. Darkness roamed across her vision in time with the black shapes that traveled over the fabric covering her face.

"I did it," she moaned.

"Cut yourself?"

Rorschach's face nodded.

"Why?" he asked.

She shook Rorschach's head. "Statement of fact."

His lips twitched. "I think I'm a better judge of that than you."

"It was a long time ago." Arete was starting to feel lightheaded. Carefully, she peeled the fabric over her head. "This...isn't right. It's your face. Rorschach's, I mean."

She could see his lips forming the words, but the sound seemed to reach her much later.

"I am Rorschach."


	5. Chapter 5

Somehow she became part of the pattern of his life. He would wake in the early afternoon to her knock at the door. He would research an article or write for a few hours, and she would clean or kneel at his side in companionable silence.

Soon it would be time for both of them to work. He would walk her to the diner. Sometimes he would stop in for breakfast. Other times he would head directly out on his day rounds. He might check in later for a cup of coffee.

After dark he would return home to change, and Rorschach would head out on his rounds. He would meet her at the diner at four to walk her to her apartment. He only missed this appointment once, on which occasion Arete hurried directly to his place, where she found him attempting to stitch up a stab wound in his own shoulder. She rolled her eyes, but took over the suturing without any further fuss.

It was the only time she had seen him without a shirt on.

To cover his self-consciousness, he endeavored to distract her.

"Do you have any more scars? Like the ones on your leg?"

Arete pulled his skin tight so it would not pucker under the stitches. "There are a few on my belly, sir. Fainter. And they don't...spell anything."

His curiosity was piqued. His tongue explored the inside of his cheek thoughtfully as she tied a knot in the thread and gently bathed the wound with hydrogen peroxide. He gritted his teeth at the stinging sensation.

"Would you like to see, sir?" she asked calmly. Her easy, open tone pleased him. The submissive role rendered her...not pliant exactly, but receptive. Rationally so. When Arete was in this mood, things were simple.

He nodded.

She stepped around in front of him and lifted her shirt a few inches, tucking it under the band of her bra. Her stomach was tight and smooth, but in a feminine way. Her waist was so slight he would almost be able encircle it with his hands.

"I need to unzip my pants, sir," she explained, ducking her head shyly, but without embarrassment.

Again he nodded.

Arete unbuttoned the fly on her jeans and slid the zipper down. She pulled the flap of fabric on the left side back to reveal the curve of her hipbone and a flash of lavender panty. A smile twitched his lips at the childish color. Just above the line of her underwear, between her navel and hip, he saw the marks she had mentioned. They were indeed shallower than the ones on her leg. Some were shorter, indicating hesitation. There were a fair number in that small area, however, and many of them were cross-hatched.

"Explain," he demanded, licking his lips.

"The physical pain distracted me."

He scratched his nose, eyeing the scars. "Suppose I can understand that."

Silence fell between them. Arete waited patiently for his next wish. He watched the rise and fall of her belly as she breathed. Her flesh looked warm and clean and soft.

"What does it feel like?" he asked. "To..." he searched for the word, "_submit_ like you do?"

Arete pondered. "I suppose it's similar to the way you feel wearing your face, sir." She indicated the bi-color piece of latex lying crumpled on the table. "When I'm in subspace, everything is so clear."

"'Subspace'?" he repeated.

She nodded slowly. "I never feel freer than when I'm serving you." Arete moved closer to him. He swayed toward her, almost unconsciously. She stepped forward until she could feel his breath hot on her skin. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent deeply. She waited. She wanted to stroke his hair, but she did not. She satisfied herself with running her eyes over his bare torso.

"Another man might behave differently in this situation," he told her stomach. "Ask for different things."

Arete closed her eyes and tried to remember to breathe. "Ask for whatever you want, sir."

He turned away. "Go away, Arete."

She winced. "Yes, sir."


	6. Chapter 6

Arete did not expect him to meet her that night after work. But Rorschach fell into step beside her as she left the diner, just as he always did. He did not speak, and she did not dare to break the silence.

They were two blocks away from her apartment when he said, "The cook."

Arete frowned and cocked her head. "Beg pardon?"

"Are you trying to seduce him?"

She stopped and stared at him. He regarded her evenly, the dark blobs of his mask refusing to resolve into any semblance of an expression.

"Louis? Am I trying to seduce _Louis_?" she asked in amazement.

Rorschach resumed walking. "Saw you dancing with him. Smiling. Laughing."

Arete hurried to catch up with him. "Yes, I was dancing with him. It was a slow night, and he asked me to dance when the radio played a Bowie song. I don't even _like_ dancing. It's just what you do when a guy asks you to dance."

"Seemed to like it."

"Yeah, it's called 'being social'. I was kind of in the mood to be taken out of myself, you know?"

Her apartment building was across the street. Rorschach stopped walking and shoved his hat down more firmly onto his head, as if to say 'good night and good luck'.

Arete made no move to cross the street. She stepped closer to him, an incredulous smile parting her lips. "Are you...are you _jealous_?"

"Hurm."

"I'm not trying to seduce Louis. I'm not even interested in him." She lowered her head. "I'm _your_ girl. For better or worse." Sighing, she turned and stepped down onto the street.

Arete was opening the front door of her building when she heard Rorschach call, "See you later."


	7. Chapter 7

Ten hours later she was kneeling once again on his floor, listening to the familiar sound of pen scratching on paper.

He had opened the door to her knock as if nothing had happened. Arete, for her part, was not inclined to rock the boat by asking questions. So she merely sank into subspace and enjoyed the comfort of his presence.

"I want to exercise my privileges," he announced suddenly, swiveling on the hard wood seat of his chair.

The turn of phrase almost made her smile, but she restrained herself. "Yes, sir."

"I want you to say it again."

"Say what, sir?"

He was silent for a long moment, then he drew a ragged breath. "That you're my girl."

Her lips did curve in a smile at that. "I'm your girl, sir."

"You're my girl?"

"Yes, sir."

"Take off your top."

Arete realized that she was not as far down into subspace as she should have been, because his words startled her, and she hesitated.

"You're mine?" he prodded.

"Yes, sir," she insisted.

"No one else's?"

"No, sir."

"Then remove your top."

Arete reacted immediately this time. She slipped her t-shirt over her head, folded it neatly, and laid it aside. She did not look up, but she could feel the heat of his gaze upon her. Her skin prickled pleasurably.

"That, too. Take it off."

After a heartbeat she realized that he meant her bra. She reached back to unfasten it, slipped the straps off her shoulders, and placed the bra atop her t-shirt. She returned her hands to their resting place on top of her thighs. She let her eyes fall out of focus.

Her breath was coming a little heavier than it should.

She waited.

An interminable moment passed, then she heard him resume writing.

"Don't suppose Louis has seen _those_," he muttered.

After three days of him making the same request, Arete was no longer even aware of her partial nudity. By the fifth day, she automatically removed her shirt and bra before kneeling by his leg. She was quite comfortable, in fact; the summer days were still hot, and a cooling breeze from the window would sometimes play across her skin.

He, in turn, had ceased to put his shirt on when she arrived in the afternoon. The sleeveless undershirt he wore (she had teased him about his 'wifebeater') permitted her to examine his healing wound more easily. And she was not above taking the opportunity to sneak glances and memorize the hard muscular curves of his arms.

Now he creased his newspaper and looked down at her. "What should I call you when you're...like this?"

"Sir?" she asked, looking up discreetly. "I don't understand."

He crossed his legs contemplatively. "You once made a comparison between us. 'Rorschach' when I'm wearing my face. Who are you when you're wearing yours?"

Arete thought for a moment. "Well, some subs have slave names. A lot of tops take another name too, though."

"'Slave names'?" He quirked an eyebrow. She could tell that the vocabulary disturbed him. He pondered for a moment. "The way a masked vigilante takes another name."

She shrugged. "Everyone likes to have another identity. So why not be 'Darkheart' or 'the Duchess'? Some tops have their subs identify by their name, like 'Lord Henry's Pet' or 'Lilith's Treasure'. Other slaves don't have a name. They're just 'slut', 'bitch', 'boy', whatever."

Arete would never have thought that he could be shocked, but the frown on his face told her this information seemed outrageous even to him.

"I would never call you...one of those names. And not 'slave', either. You're not my slave."

Arete smiled. "Yes, I am."

"You're my _girl_," he corrected. She could tell it still pleased him to say this.

"Yes, sir," she agreed.

He sat back and regarded her for a long moment. "'Doll', then."

Arete blushed. "Because I'm little, and you can play with me however you like?"

He smiled crookedly.

She looked up properly then and met his eyes. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Rorschach's Doll." A dark thrill coursed through her at the words.

He stared back at her. Finally she bowed her head and looked down.

"Get me a glass of water, doll," he ordered, chuckling softly.

But as she rose to fulfill his request, he hissed and called her back.

"Look at me," he demanded harshly.

Arete obeyed. She almost quailed under the flintiness of his gaze. _What have I done?_ she wondered._ Is he going to punish me?_ He had never punished her before. What would his idea of punishment be?

"I don't like you lying to me." The words dropped from his lips like rusty blades.

Arete's eyes went wide. "I don't...I don't..." she stammered.

Grabbing her hip, he twisted her partially around and lifted her arm into the air. "You told me that the only other scars of this type were on your stomach. What are these?" He indicated a series of livid marks along the vein leading into her armpit. His probing fingers were rough. "Explain yourself."

"Sir, those aren't from cutting." Her face fell in shame. "I used to inject myself there. So I wouldn't have track marks on my arms."

A beat.

"Anywhere else?" he demanded.

"Between my toes. And inside my thigh, along the femoral artery." She wanted to weep with humiliation. Now he knew what a filthy bitch she really was. Now he would hate her.

He released her arm roughly and pushed her away. Arete squeezed her eyes shut against the tears.

"Jeans. Off."

Her eyes flew open. Fumbling, she unfastened her pants and slid them down her legs. He snapped his fingers. Stepping out of the jeans, she came to stand before him in nothing but her panties. She struggled to slow her breathing, to send herself back down into subspace. She would take whatever punishment he meant to give her.

He stepped close to her. She could feel his breath on her face and forcibly relaxed her eyes inside their sockets. _Thy will be done_.

With spider-light touches, he moved over her flesh. He began at her neck and traveled down her front, giving equal attention to each part of her body.

He was examining her.

Obediently, she lifted her arm, shifted her leg, canted her hip as he moved over her. He muttered to himself as he went. Arete could not make out what he was saying. He knelt to confirm the scars on her upper thigh and between her toes, passed behind her and stood again to traverse her back. He checked every inch of flesh that was not covered by her panties. Then he sat down in his chair.

"Lie to me again, and there will be consequences." He turned back to his notes.

Arete wavered with relief.

"On your knees, doll."


	8. Chapter 8

Rated M for language, boobies, and some mention of masked avenger boy parts.

He was dividing his attention between his mail drop across the street and Arete. He had actually become quite expert at this type of multitasking over his years as a vigilante. It pleased him to watch Arete in the diner. He enjoyed seeing her slim, efficient body serving others, knowing that he could snap his fingers and bring her running to him.

He could not pinpoint when exactly he had become used to his control over her. Kovacs or Rorschach, it did not matter. He had come to realize that she would do anything to achieve his favor and avoid his disdain. He had that power over her.

Sometimes she would smile at him across the room, and he would understand: _I'm your girl_.

As of yet, he had not needed to punish her in any substantive manner. He was uncertain what he would do, should the need arise. On the other hand, he had not actively rewarded her. Despite this fact, more and more of his waking hours were consumed with plans for rewarding her. And, though he hated to admit it, many of his dreams centered around delicious punishments.

He frowned as a fat man dropped a lit cigarette into the trashcan on the corner. He made a note in his book to pursue an article about the connection between nicotine and anti-civic behavior.

"Louis, I'm flattered, really, but no." It was Arete's voice behind him at the pass-through to the kitchen. He cocked his head to listen.

"Hey, it's just dinner, huh? No strings," the cook was insisting. He laughed. "Come on, you're gonna pass up free dinner? I'll take you somewhere nice. Where do you wanna go?"

"Thank you, Louis, but it's not happening, okay?" she said, more firmly this time.

The cook laughed. "So it's true? You're really seeing him? That masked bozo I've seen walking you home? Fer Chrissake, Arete."

Arete was silent. Then the cook wailed with pain as liquid splashed on the floor: "That's hot coffee, you crazy bitch!"

He heard her whispering furiously, but he could not make out the words. When she emerged from behind the counter, she was white with anger. Her hands were shaking. She cut a glance sideways at him as she passed to hand a check to the shocked and giggling college kids in the corner booth. He crooked a smile at her.

She deserved a reward for that.

"Rorschach can take care of himself, you know." He sat in his chair as she checked the stab wound in his shoulder. It was almost completely healed now; she had taken the stitches out days ago.

"You are Rorschach," Arete reminded him. "And I don't want a dumbass like Louis judging you. What the hell does he know?"

He chuckled softly and drew her around to stand in front of him. "Pretty tough for a doll. But so beautiful."

Just as she had taken to removing her shirt and bra, now she had started stripping out of her pants when she entered his apartment. He stared now at her small breasts, eyes roving over the way they swelled out from her ribcage. A flush spread over her chest, and he looked up to find her blushing. Her eyes, unfocused, stared off into the distance.

She would like this reward. He was sure of it.

He uncrossed his legs and sat forward. His left hand reached up to close over her right breast. Her chest hitched ever so slightly. He stroked the soft skin, studying the smooth curve of her flesh. Her breathing definitely seemed to be faster now.

His thumb zeroed in on her nipple, and she gasped out loud. He watched, fascinated, as the pebbly brown skin collapsed into a tight berry. The pad of his thumb caressed the transformed protrusion. Arete swayed toward him and moaned.

"Hush," he ordered.

Obediently, she clamped her lips shut. Her eyes were wild.

He turned his attention to her left breast, the nipple of which was still slack. He changed that quickly. Now each of his thumbs gently rubbed her sensitive flesh. She clutched at his shoulder for balance.

"Hands behind your back."

Arete screwed up her face in dismay, but crossed her wrists behind her. This pose thrust her breasts out toward him. He tested what would happen if he rolled her nipples between thumb and forefinger. Her frantic attempts at self-restraint made him hum with satisfaction: her eyes were practically rolling back in her head.

Cautiously, he leaned forward, licking his lips, and closed his mouth around her right nipple. She twitched as if a bolt of electricity had shot through her. He had never tasted anything like her before; her skin was salty and sweet and something else totally unfamiliar. When he explored the tight ridges of her nipple with his tongue, she swallowed a moan in her throat.

He established a rhythm with tongue and thumb, teasing both of the little brown berries at the same time. His right hand curved around her hip to draw her closer and hold her steady. Her entire body was trembling. She fought for breath as the flush on her chest deepened and spread. The stubble of his chin brushed against her sensitive flesh, and something like a wail escaped her lips. He began to worry seriously that she might faint.

Giving her a rest, he buried his face between her breasts, cupping each soft mound with a hand. He listened to her heart, hearing her gasp for breath.

"Does it feel good?" he whispered. He did not trust his voice to speak louder.

"Yes, sir. Oh god, yes."

The passion in her voice made him suddenly aware of the warm fullness in his groin. In point of fact, giving her pleasure had aroused his own lust. He breathed deeply against her solar plexus, willing himself to relax. But the scent of her skin hardened his member even more.

His immediate reaction was disgust. What was he doing? What was this lustful game they were playing? Wasn't he wallowing in that very degeneracy he had always railed against? But as he thought about it more, he began to wonder where the sin was in all this. Two adults, each of whom would do anything for the other, consenting to a relationship that fulfilled certain needs and desires. Bizarre, perhaps. But despicable?

He had always thought of dominance games as involving leather-clad women who wielded riding crops commanding sweaty, middle-aged men in diapers to lick their boots. But now, bathed in afternoon sunshine, her near-total nudity was glorious and natural. The outward signs of her pleasure were endearing, not repellant.

Arete was not a whore. And she was no filthy bitch. She was his, and he had to take care of her, just as she took care of him. He would rather die than betray that trust.

"Is this what you want?" he asked her, looking up into her brown eyes.

"Yes. Please."

Her urgent 'please' was so sweet that he could think of nothing else to do but cover her breasts with kisses. He did not reprimand her when she threw her head back and moaned. He found that he could use her soft cries and gasps to hone his technique; they unfolded for him the various licks and caresses that would drive his doll wild.

The sounds of her pleasure stiffened his erection once more, but he ignored it. He was in control now. Cocking his head to check his watch, he chuckled, realizing that he had at least fifteen more minutes to spend on her torturous reward.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Long and lemony. Definitely 'M'. Warnings for bondage and voyeurism.

The following afternoon, Arete climbed the stairs to his apartment with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation roiling in her belly. Her clock-radio had awoken her by broadcasting the news about an attack on a known pimp. The man was in the intensive care unit, in critical condition. Police suspected that the vigilante known as Rorschach was behind the terrible beating. If the pimp died, a second count of murder might be added to the charges against John Doe, alias Rorschach.

But she knew that, if they found Rorschach, it would not be John Doe they put in prison. It would be Walter J. Kovacs. The man whose ministrations left her breasts achingly sensitive almost a full twenty-four hours later.

Arete said nothing to him about the beaten pimp when he opened the door. She did, however, reach up to stroke the fresh bruise on his jaw. She could hear one of the landlady's children wailing through the thin wall as she searched his eyes. She found nothing.

She slipped off her sandals and stripped out of her clothes, folding them neatly on top of the bed. Her panties today were pink as the sunburn on his neck.

As Arete moved to take her usual place near the table, she thought that he seemed unusually fierce today. _Maybe it's just that nasty bruise..._

Nevertheless, he still had not spoken a word to her.

She knelt, and the silence hung heavy around her.

He sat stiffly at the table, seeming to read his newspaper, but she suspected that his thoughts were elsewhere. He cleared his throat, preparatory to speaking, and Arete waited for some mention of Rorschach's encounter with the pimp. What she heard was vastly different.

"Did you commit onanism yesterday?"

The term was so antiquated that it took Arete a moment to realize what he meant, but then the understanding washed over her in a wave of surprise and shame. She had. She had committed 'onanism'.

She had left him in the dining room at the Gunga to change into her uniform in the ladies'. Her body was still on fire from their encounter, from his hands and his mouth on her breasts. The situation was untenable: she knew she could not work like that. Concealed inside the bathroom stall, she had slipped her hand into her panties and stroked herself. It did not take long. Her climax, sharp and bright, snapped her in two but did not relieve the tension suffusing her muscles. She still wanted him.

_How did he know_? Arete turned her face away.

"Look at me."

She shook her head 'no'.

"Look at me," he growled furiously, and his voice was the most terrifying thing Arete had ever heard.

Her dark eyes, wide with fear, snapped up to meet his ice-blue ones.

"You did not ask permission to do that." He faltered slightly. "To touch yourself."

"How did you know?" she gasped.

"Flushed and shaky when you exited the ladies' room. Wouldn't look at me." He cocked his head. "Wasn't sure until just now."

Arete swallowed nervously.

"You will ask permission in the future," he insisted.

She stared. He was full of surprises today.

"And I will punish you for this infraction."

_So. There we are_. She held his gaze with difficulty and took a deep breath.

"Stand up," he demanded calmly. "Eyes front."

Arete scrambled to her feet and found a point on the wall to stare at. He moved around her, the floor creaking under his steps. She felt him draw closer. Then everything went black as he fastened a blindfold around her eyes. She exhaled and fought the panic that rose in her throat.

"Do you trust me?" His voice was a low rumble in her ear. He fastened the knot securely behind her head.

"Yessir," she whispered. She cleared her throat and tried again with more conviction. "Yes, sir."

He took her hand and guided her forward until her hip brushed against the edge of the table. "Strip. Completely."

Nervously, Arete hooked her thumbs into her panties and bent to pull them off. He took her arm to help her step out. His hand was hot and calloused. Before she knew what was happening, he had lifted her in his arms. She gasped at the brief sensation of pressing against his body, but by then he had already deposited her on the table. His touch was dispassionate and efficient as he sat her with her bottom inches away from the far edge, facing toward his chair.

"Are you mine?" He pulled her wrists behind her back and bound them together with strips of fabric.

"Yes, sir. I'm yours, sir."

"Then you belong to me completely. And I will not see this body injured _or_ pleasured without my permission. Do you understand?"

She knew he meant to frighten her, but his low, rough voice sent a thrill of excitement through her. His words aroused her immeasurably. "Yes, sir. I understand," she responded, licking her lips.

He grabbed her right calf and bent her knee up at a forty-five degree angle. More fabric looped around her ankle, binding her to the table leg on the corner. He reached for her left ankle to repeat his actions on the other side. Arete shook her head and drew her leg away. His hand clamped around her ankle like an iron vise. Her thighs were forced apart, exposing her scars and her womanhood to his gaze. He tied her left ankle to the other table leg. Then he sat down in his chair, directly in front of her.

Arete leaned forward and struggled to bring her knees together in an effort to conceal her center.

"Sit up," he barked.

Her face twisting with misery, she obeyed. The bondage of her arms forced her shoulders back and her breasts forward. Her thighs were spread wide like a whore's. She was completely naked before him.

"Tell me immediately if you start to lose feeling in your hands or feet." His voice was mild now, contemplative even.

Arete was horrified and excited at the same time. She longed to see his face, even expressionless as it usually was. _What is he thinking? Do I disgust him?_ The suspense was agony.

"Completely shaved," he observed. "Very hygenic." Then she heard the scratching of his pen. Was he making notes about her? Or was he working as usual, on the table between her ankles, completely ignoring the fact that she was exposed eighteen inches away from his face?

_Doesn't matter_, her sub voice said. _It's what he wants, and you will accept it_. Arete closed her eyes under the blindfold and took a deep breath, nodding. She must submit. She _would _submit. The oxygen came in through her nose, the carbon dioxide went out through her mouth. She relaxed her muscles and let her head loll forward. She listened to the scratch of his pen, to the noises of the city.

She drifted.

It might have been minutes or hours until he addressed her.

"You're so beautiful, doll. I may have to punish you like this everyday."

Arete flushed under his praise.

He walked around behind her and slit the fabric that bound her wrists. Arete stretched her arms, rotating her hands. She waited for him to release her ankles or undo the blindfold, but he did not.

He spoke instead: "Now you may touch yourself."

Arete froze. She wished for x-ray vision to see his face through the blindfold. Carefully, she set her left palm on the table edge behind her for balance.

"Do it," he ordered. She heard the chair leg grind against the floor as he sat.

Trembling, Arete slid her right hand over her hip. She hesitated just before reaching her wet flesh.

"I want to see how you do it." His voice was gentler now, encouraging.

With a sudden force of will, Arete dipped into her passage, coating her fingers with slick juices. She pictured him watching her, and, god help her, she was aroused. She moved upward slightly to stroke her swollen nub. Her legs twitched at the bolt of pleasure that rocketed through her.

"Does that feel good?"

"Yes, sir," she moaned.

His voice was huskier than normal when he asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Arete smiled languidly. "You, sir." She scooted her hips forward to spread her thighs farther apart. Her fingers continued their work, and warmth spread throughout her body. "Your eyes. Your hands. Your mouth." She laughed joyfully, recollecting the feel of him. "Your stubble against my skin."

"You thought of me yesterday? When you were doing this in the ladies' room?"

"I couldn't think of anything else, sir."

"So you liked the reward I gave you yesterday?"

"Oh, yes, sir," she confessed rapturously.

"I don't know which I've enjoyed more: yesterday's reward or today's punishment."

"Am I still being punished, sir?"

She heard his low chuckle.

Feeling utterly wanton, she arched her back to draw his attention to her breasts. "So you're not still angry with me, sir?"

"I was never angry with you, doll," he answered. "But rules are rules."

"Ohhh," she moaned, the pleasure between her thighs growing. "I didn't know, sir. I didn't know the rule."

"Won't forget it now, will you?"

"No, sir. I won't forget." _I want you. Now_.

She had heard noises coming from his direction as they spoke, but now one particular sound prevailed. A sort of light smacking sound. Arete knew exactly what it was. The thought of him working his erection as he watched her was too much. The gentle pleasure between her thighs transformed into need, and her fingers sped up.

"Not yet, doll."

"No, sir," she agreed, restraining herself. _Take me. Climb up here, and take me_!

"Shouldn't tie you up for punishment next time," he muttered. "Think you like it too much."

Arete grinned, panting. "I _do_ like it. Feels so good, so safe. With you."

"You're mine," he groaned.

She gasped as her pleasure crystallized into sudden immediacy.

He understood her dilemma. "Beg me."

"Please, sir," she hissed, the muscles in her thighs trembling. "Please. I want your permission. Oh! Please!"

His voice was low and guttural as he spat, "Do it."

Arete parted her legs as far as they would go and assailed her tender flesh. She could hear him moving faster as well. She danced on the edge for a long moment, then release flooded through her. She cried out with pleasure, shaking under the onslaught. Moments later, she heard his breathing hitch and then a stifled groan.

She scooted her bottom forward until she could collapse back onto the table. She listened to his movements; cleaning and re-fastening, she supposed. Arete wished she could have watched him climax.

Then she felt his blade against her right ankle, and he sliced away her restraints. She raised her leg and stretched it out straight, grimacing. His hard fingers grabbed her and manipulated the large muscles of her calf and thigh.

"Cramping up?" he asked quietly.

"No," she answered, grinning. "But you can keep rubbing."

He snorted and moved to free her left leg.

Arete sat up but did not remove the blindfold. A thought had occurred to her. "When I take this thing off, will I be able to see your eyes?"

He hummed interrogatively.

"I mean: which face am I going to see?"

"Which one were you picturing?"

"You know."

"I don't," he insisted.

She sighed. "The one with red hair. And blue eyes that drown me in their icy depths."

He was silent.

Arete untied the blindfold but kept her eyes closed. "It doesn't matter," she said at last.

"Bad liar."

"You wouldn't like me if I were a good liar. You-"

But Arete never got to finish her sentence, because by then the red-haired man was kissing her.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Rated M for language. Don't know why, but Arete reveals a very fou mouth in this one. And, hopefully, a skillful one. Oh wait, that's the next chapter... ;]

"Goin' to your other job?" the landlady called with false cheer as Arete came down the front stoop. The woman sitting in the lawn chair next to her giggled.

Arete smiled distantly and continued down the stairs. She was not in the mood to engage the other woman.

The landlady's companion, whose personal appearance seemed to have aspired for Madonna but achieved a sort of low-rent Bette Davis, piped up: "What I wanna know is how that ugly bastard affords home visits from her every day."

"Jesus Christ," Arete breathed. "Don't let _him_ hear you say that." _If you value your life_, she added silently.

Bette sniggered and gave Arete's slight frame the once-over. "I always thought that guy had a thing for little boys. Now I guess we have proof."

Arete's eyebrows flew up at the dual insult. She stopped on the sidewalk, smirking incredulously.

"Well, I just hope he hasn't spent his rent money on your skinny ass," the landlady chimed in.

"Where do you hide them balls when the johns come 'round, huh?" Arete retorted.

The landlady's mouth dropped open in shock. Bette laughed uproariously.

A movement upstairs caught Arete's eye. She looked up and saw a red head hanging out of a hall window. He must have heard the voices and the laughter.

_Shit_.

She was not about to let him see her out here exchanging insults with his landlady like a fishwife.

"Everything alright?" he called, leaning his forearms on the sill.

Arete shaded her eyes and smiled reassuringly at him. "It's fine, Mr. Kovacs. No problem."

Ice-blue eyes stared back at her. She could hear him thinking at her: _Remember that conversation we just had about what a bad liar you are?_

The hookers exchanged a look. "'Mr. Kovacs'," the landlady mimicked, collapsing into a fit of giggles.

"Say whatever you like to me," Arete said quietly to the guffawing women. She tilted her chin down. "But don't you say a goddamn word to him, you hear me?"

"Whatever you say, ma'am," Bette scoffed.

Arete wanted to escape with some grace, but she could not resist a parting blow: "Are you sucking dick right now? No? Then shut your goddamn mouth!" She turned and stalked off, a pair of blue eyes burning a hole in her back.

_I hate people_, she had confessed to him once at the diner.

_You don't hate people_, he had responded, the ghost of a smile twitching his lips.

_Yeah_, she had insisted. _I kinda think I do._

The late summer sun warmed her as she walked to work, but it was not so hot as the memory of his mouth on hers. She licked her lips, imagining that she could taste him.

Their kiss had been brief and awkward. He refused to relax his mouth; he had pursed his lips like a young boy submitting to a schoolyard kiss. Then he backed away quickly, refusing to meet her eyes.

"I've...got to go to work," Arete had blurted, throwing her clothes on. On the other side of his apartment door, she had collapsed backwards, throwing her hands up to cover the blush of shame and horror suffusing her face.

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_, her mind hissed as she crossed the street to the diner. She saw Elena smiling at her through the plate glass. Arete took a deep breath and pasted on her waitress face. Grabbing the door handle, she felt the conditioned air suck her in.

Rorschach was standing in the shadows as usual when she finished work.

"Hi," Arete said, gritting her teeth in embarrassment.

He said nothing but fell into step beside her. His hands were shoved so deeply into his coat pockets she thought they might rip through. When they passed under a streetlight, she noticed that the blobs of his face were gliding in their viscous dance a little faster than usual. The Manhattan-inspired fabric was heat-sensitive: he was blushing.

"Wanted to apologize."

Arete could not help but wince. "What for?"

"Broke the rules earlier. Sorry."

She stopped and frowned at him. "How could you break the rules? You make them."

"Don't think I do. Wasn't supposed to kiss you." His face was turned away from her.

"Rorschach, listen to me. And I don't say this lightly." Arete pushed him back into the darkness of an alley until he butted up against the side of a building. She stared up into the swirling pattern under the brim of his hat. "You are insane."

His body stiffened in surprise and anger.

She brought her face up to within centimeters of his own, leaning her body against him. "_You_ make the rules, Rorschach. That means what you say goes. That means if you want to kiss, we kiss."

One gloved hand slid around her waist to pull her closer.

"Do you want to kiss?" Arete whispered.

Rorschach lifted the lower edge of his face to expose first stubbled chin, then mouth.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she teased, smiling. She brushed her lips lightly against his.

His left hand cupped the back of her head, drawing her to him.

Arete giggled. "Tilt your head a little. Noses!"

Rorschach obeyed, but he still held his lips unnaturally taut. Arete feared the clack of teeth. "Relax," she murmured, resting her palms on his strong chest. She backed off slightly to place tiny kisses on the edge of his mouth. When she focused her attentions on his lower lip, nibbling and sucking, he moaned softly. Arete placed her mouth firmly over his;

after a moment he relented and allowed her to control the kiss.

Suddenly Rorschach froze as a black-and-white passed on the street outside. He looked back down at her when the cruiser was gone. Feeling a little giddy, Arete grabbed his lapels. "Wow, I'm making out with a wanted man!"

"What do you think so far?"

She leaned into his neck and flicked her tongue against the exposed skin. "I think I'd like to take it somewhere a little more private. Where we can take our time. And use tongue."


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Rated M for adult, D/s content (yay!). And, yes, I do mean for the chapter to end where it does. ;]

"Your parents: they don't live in the city?" he called from the bathroom.

Arete wrestled out of her shirt and pondered the insolent answer, but the familiar environment of his apartment shifted her into a more respectful mode. "My parents are dead. My dad had been posted back to Korea, and they were killed in a car accident there. They're buried with my mother's family in Seoul."

"When you started the drugs?"

"Yeah, it wasn't long after they died that I started using." She paused. "You know, I used to go to meetings every other day. Sometimes everyday. I haven't been to one since we..." She slipped off her pants and sat on the table. She could not resist tracing its worn surface with her fingers, remembering the discipline it had assisted in hours before.

When he emerged from the bathroom in fresh pants and button-down shirt, she knelt in her usual place. He pushed hair, dark red from the shower, off his forehead. "You don't have to."

Arete smiled up at him. "I want to." She thought she detected a flash of pleasure in his eyes.

"How long since you quit?" he asked, taking his seat and rolling up his sleeves.

Arete raised her eyebrows. "Since I quit for good? I've been clean seven years."

He paused, right hand on left cuff. "How old?'

She grinned up at him mischievously. "How old do you think I am?"

His eyes roved over her face and body, eyeing her far longer than necessary. "Twenty-eight."

"Nope." She scooted forward to help him roll up his sleeve.

"How old?" he repeated, taking hold of her hand.

"Are you ordering me to tell you?"

His eyes darted away as he pondered this question. "Yes," he answered finally.

Arete pursed her lips. "Are you sure?" Her eyes challenged him.

He grabbed her suddenly and hauled her to her feet. "I make the rules," he rumbled.

Arete felt a familiar mixture of fear and pleasurable anticipation tingling in her belly. She gasped as he bent her down over the table. Rising to his feet, he caressed her buttocks, tracing the line where panties met skin.

"No talking back. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," she whispered.

He rested his right hand on her lower back, steadying her. Arete fought the urge to wiggle her bottom as his left hand stroked it. She was unsure that he would actually do it, but then his hand swung back and popped the curve of her buttock firmly. She moaned at the delicious sting. Frustrated at the fabric that separated his hand from her flesh, he pulled her panties down to her thighs. He smacked her again, and then a third time.

"Harder, sir," Arete begged.

"Don't recall asking for your input," he drawled. Nevertheless, he put much more force behind the next swat.

She cried out, eyes almost rolling into the back of her head, as he spanked her over and over. Her hands clenched into fists on the tabletop. Her body rocked forward with each blow.

Soon he paused to massage the redness out of her flesh. "Skin's so hot," he marveled. "Better stop."

Arete wriggled, whining an "unh-unh".

Laughing softly, he sat down in his chair, pulled up her underpants, and hauled her into his lap. "Hurt to sit?"

She buried her face in his neck and shook her head. He wrapped his arms around her securely. "Something's poking me, though," her muffled voice announced.

He swallowed the first response that sprang into his mind and stroked her back instead. "Why do you _like_ all the punishments I give you?"

Arete giggled and tucked her hands into the gaps between his shirt buttons. Her small fingers were soft and warm against his chest.

"Never given anyone pleasure before. Only pain."

She raised her head to whisper in his ear. "Give me anything you want."

He caught his breath at her words, and she closed her teeth gently around his lower lip. Grasping her jawline, he covered her mouth with his. She moaned, her lips soft and yielding under his assault. He dared to slip his tongue into her mouth briefly, which made her grasp his shirt in tight fists.

He pulled away. "Better than before?"

Arete could hear the slight quiver of anxiety in his voice. She rested her forehead against his. "Doesn't get much better than this," she purred.

He kissed her again, deeply, losing himself in her sweet mouth. He felt like he was dissolving. Her slim fingers unbuttoned his shirt, trailing over his bare chest. She brushed one of his nipples lightly, and he shivered. "What do you want?" she breathed into his mouth.

He shook his head.

Her lips went to his ear and began to suckle the lobe. He moaned, fingers clenching convulsively on her naked flesh.

"What do you want?" she insisted, her tongue tracing the curves of his ear.

"I make the rules," he gasped helplessly.

"Yes, you do. And do you trust me?"

"Yessss," he hissed as her fingers grazed his nipple again.

"Then what do you want?" She leaned back until he could see how dilated her pupils were. She looked intoxicated with desire. For _him_.

He dragged in a deep breath.


	12. Chapter 12

"Why should I _tell_ you what I want, when I can just _take_ it?" he rasped.

Smiling, Arete stroked the bruise on his jaw with feather-light fingertips. Then she slid her hands down and continued the work of unbuttoning his shirt. He grabbed her wrist.

"Oh, please!" she pleaded, unable to stop the words from pouring out. "I want to see you."

He hesitated, eyeing her. "Kneel down," he ordered and disentangled himself from their embrace.

Reluctantly, Arete slid off his lap into her place on the floor. She kept her face turned up, though, watching him. He stared down into her eyes as he unfastened the remaining buttons and shrugged out of his shirt.

Arete's gaze roved hungrily over his torso as he towered above her. His skin was fair and nearly hairless, with a scattering of freckles over the shoulders. His lean musculature made him wiry and dangerous. There was a bruise on his ribcage to match the one on his jaw. She wanted to lick the ridges of his muscles, drag her nails over his flesh to raise welts. Arete clenched her fists on her thighs to control herself.

"God, you're sexy," she whispered huskily, moistening her lips. "You make me forget how to breathe."

She saw his hands began to tremble. He stuffed them into his pockets. He tried to speak, but no sound would come out. "On the mattress," he finally managed. "Face down."

Arete obeyed apprehensively. The bedding was suffused with his scent; she inhaled deeply, drawing him into her. She heard him moving around behind her. She pulled her arms up to cushion her head; her nipples felt swollen against the lumpy mattress. Then suddenly he straddled the backs of her thighs. He did not rest any weight on her, but she could feel the heat of his body baking into her flesh. She shivered slightly, knowing that it was his groin, albeit clothed, that pressed against her buttocks.

An odd, almost tickling sensation started near her right shoulderblade. She felt his calloused right hand cup her ribcage to hold her steady. The soft object traveled across the top of her back to her left side, then began again on the right. It took her a moment to understand.

"What are you writing?" she asked.

The felt-tip pen continued its journey over her skin. "What I want to do to you," he responded gruffly.

"What, in Hebrew? You're going right to left." Arete relaxed into the mattress, enjoying the experience thoroughly. _I like being your paper_.

"Taught myself a long time ago. This way ink won't smudge."

"But what-"

"Hush now."

Torn by curiosity, Arete's whole being collapsed into the tip of his pen. She strained to comprehend the strokes. Was that a "p"? Or a "g"? She was desperate to know his fantasies.

Soon he began to mutter under his breath. She thought she caught a few of the words, but they were explicit, dirty. He would never use such words.

Or would he?

The image grew in her mind of him marking her with the things his body wanted from hers, in filthy language and no uncertain terms. The tender flesh between her thighs throbbed with arousal.

He withdrew his right hand from her side, and she heard him unzip his pants. His pen strokes became messier and more hurried. Suddenly the letters were big and sloppy, and he finished the last word with a flourish.

_His signature_.

There came a plastic click as the pen hit the floor. He crouched down over her, his hot right hand snaking around to grab her breast. His panting was loud in her ear. She could feel the knuckles of his left hand grazing her buttock with each stroke.

"Let _me_," she begged desperately, anxious to pleasure him with her own hands, to take him in her mouth. "I want you."

Arete felt him shudder, and then hot fluid dripped down her back. Her lips parted to speak again, but he beat her to it.

"Eyes down!" he barked. He rose and strode into the bathroom. She heard the water go on in the shower. Arete lifted her head cautiously but dropped it when saw him storming back into the main room. Unceremoniously, he grabbed her upper arms and dragged her bodily into the shower. She stumbled into the stall, wide-eyed. With frantic movements he soaped her back, scrubbing away both ink and ejaculate.

"No!" Arete wailed, twisting away, but he held her firm. She stomped her foot uselessly on the cheap fiberglass floor and bit back tears. "Your signature!"

He paused in his ferocity and leaned his forehead against her shoulder. Hot water streamed over his head and down her back. "I made you filthy," he muttered, his voice echoing strangely in the shower stall.

"You made me yours! I felt you sign me: 'Walter J. Kovacs'."

"Say it again." He spoke so quietly, she barely heard him over the rushing water.

"What? 'Walter'?" Arete turned around, brushing her sodden hair out of her face. He clutched her to him. "Walter," she repeated, as his mouth came to hover a breath from her own.

"Arete," he whispered, and kissed her.

When he pulled away, she laughed, tears streaming down her face. "For Chrissakes, why does everything have to be so damn complicated with you?" She reached over to switch off the water. She looked back, and he

was smiling; grinning, actually. "But I'll forgive you because you have such a gorgeous smile."

Walter blushed.

"And you look really good wet," she added, running her eyes over his glistening torso.

He looked down and noticed that his trousers were soaking. He hesitated for a second.

Arete nodded. "Take 'em off," she agreed.

He slipped a finger inside the elastic of her panties and tugged. _These too_.

"But, sir," she responded coyly, peering up at him from under her eyelashes, "then I'll be naked."

Walter reached out to grab a towel for her. "Good," he grunted. "Wanna try out something a girl taught me yesterday."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Rated M for adult content, playing without a safe word, and references to historical events that the underage might not comprehend. I do not own Watchmen (insert quip about having one's own Rorschach) or the music of John Lennon.

I hope this works. –ab

"A girl taught you something yesterday?" Arete asked, frowning, as he toweled her off. "Who?"

His lips quirked in a smile. "You."

"Oh."

"Jealous?" he muttered in her ear as he reached around to dry her back.

"Totally green." He bent to remove her panties, and she stroked his hair. Her fingers trailed down to rest on his broad shoulders. "I don't think you believed me when I told you how sexy you are."

He "hurm"ed noncommittally.

Arete traced his biceps with her fingertip. "What, am I lying? I thought you were good at detecting lies." She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "How many times do I have to tell you that I want you? Don't believe me? Trust my body."

He allowed her to take his hand and slide it between her thighs. His eyelids fluttered slightly. "Not from the shower," he commented. It was partially a question.

She shook her head, smiling. He wiggled his fingers slightly, and she gasped with pleasure. He grabbed her jawline and kissed her intently. "In my bed. Face up."

"Yes, sir," she replied and scooted obediently out of the bathroom toward his mattress. She lay down eagerly, hair still damp. He stripped off his wet trousers and padded after her, naked in the gray light before dawn, but hesitated before her entered her line of vision.

"Eyes closed."

Arete screwed her face up in dismay, but obeyed. She imagined his lean form approaching her, his member swaying in its nest of red curls as he walked. The floor next to the mattress creaked. He was standing over her.

"Arms above your head."

She stretched her arms up, feeling her ribcage tilt and her breasts press up. She rubbed her wrists together eagerly.

Walter chuckled. "Not going to tie you up, doll. You'll have to restrain yourself." The mattress bunched under his weight as he stepped over her to lie down on her left side. He leaned into her ear to add, "And I'm not going easy on you."

Arete shivered with excitement.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I suppose I should answer you this time, huh?"

He pinched her nipple, hard enough to make her hips buck with pain. "Do you really think this is the time to challenge me? When you're naked?" His fingertips drifted over her body, but somehow the sensation was menacing. "And helpless?"

"I'm thirty-four, sir," Arete whispered.

Walter was silent for a moment. "I thought you were younger," he said finally, resting his hand on the swell of her ribcage.

"No, sir." Arete could not help but ask: "Disappointed, sir?"

"No. Just thought your father met your mother during the war. But you're too old."

"No, sir. My father met my mother when he was stationed in China, before the Korean War. My mother's family had moved there; my grandfather was fighting Chiang Kai-Shek."

"For the communists?"

"Yes, sir."

He considered this for a moment. "I'm still too old for you."

"You're a lot of things, but 'too old' is not one of them."

Another nipple pinch. Arete startled, but then breathed into the pain.

"Too much?" His tone was less concerned than challenging.

"No, sir."

His hand moved to her other breast and toyed with her nipple, which hardened under his touch. "Want harder?"

Arete gulped. "Whatever _you_ want, sir."

Walter's thumb played over her nipple. She arched into his touch. "Arguing with landlady yesterday," he commented. There was a question inherent in his words.

Arete stiffened. _Guess I'll get a first-hand glimpse of the famous Rorschach interrogation skills..._

"What did she say to you?" He leaned down to kiss her shoulder. His breath was hot against her skin.

"Said I looked like a boy." _Half-truth. Maybe he'll believe me_. "Implied that you're...well, you know."

"Homosexual?" He snorted. "Stupid whore. Anything else?"

"No, sir."

He grabbed a handful of her short dark hair and yanked. Arete bit back a cry of pain, but she also felt a rush of warmth to her loins. She spiraled down into subspace.

"Tough little thing, aren't you?" Walter spoke admiringly but he did not release her hair.

_Christ, do it again._

"Sir, it's not about being tough. It's about accepting what you give me. Whatever it is, I take it."

"'Whatever it is'," he repeated wonderingly. "You don't get to say 'when'?"

"I would never say 'when' to you, sir."

With sudden fervor, his mouth closed over her nipple. She moaned at the shattering pleasure of his tongue laving her sensitive flesh.

"Hush, doll. Restraint," he reminded her, speaking around her taut bud.

His tongue went to work again, and his stubble rasped against her skin, but Arete choked back her cries. His teeth grazed her lightly, and warm pleasure flooded between her legs. His left hand began to trace a meandering path over her belly.

_Down. Yes. Keep going. Don't stop. _Arete panted with anticipation.

Walter pulled her thighs apart, cocking her left leg over his hip. His fingers trailed down over her fleshy mound.

"You shave every day, doll?" he murmured, flicking his tongue over her nipple.

Arete flexed her muscles with pleasure. "Yes, sir. I need to be ready for whatever you want from me."

"Skin's so soft." His fingers slid into the crease of her thigh. He laughed when he felt the moisture that was leaking out of her. He traced a slick circle around her, never delving past her labia. She strained, spreading her legs farther apart. Walter had abandoned her nipple, and she could feel his gasps blasting her skin with hot, moist air.

Suddenly she felt a finger sliding into her passage. She tilted her hips to accept it. Cautiously, he inserted a second finger, then a third. Her body stretched around him. Arete bit back a moan of pleasure. His fingers withdrew slightly, then plunged in again. He repeated the motion a few times, wary of her reaction. She lifted her pelvis to welcome each thrust. Soft mewls escaped her lips.

Walter slid his fingers out of her to caress her slick, swollen nub. At the same moment, his lips closed over hers in a deep kiss. Arete wailed her ecstasy into his mouth as he stroked her gently. She wriggled her hips forward to encourage a firmer touch. Perversely, he touched her more lightly.

"Harder," she begged.

He bit her lower lip in warning. "Hush." His voice was a low growl.

Arete felt an annihilating bolt of electricity shoot through her. She stiffened, trembling, but then the ecstasy continued, her need building once more.

"Please, sir."

"Stop it. Or I will." He buried his tongue in her mouth.

A second climax struck her, and she bucked up in amazement. Arete rubbed herself against his fingers desperately. As soon as he released her mouth, she gasped, "Don't stop!"

Walter took his hand away.

Arete cried out in frustration, her muscles hard as rock, her entire being concentrated on the incredible throbbing between her thighs.

Then she felt him moving. In a flash he was kneeling between her legs, her calves resting on his shoulders. She struggled to maintain her position of self-restraint, squeezing her eyes shut, stretching her arms out farther. She held her breath.

He positioned himself with his hand and pushed into her slowly. Arete shivered, feeling every inch of him enter her soaking passage. He filled her, and she was stretched gloriously around him. Having buried himself deep inside of her, he remained frozen. She hardly dared to breathe, afraid of breaking the spell.

Walter withdrew, slow as molasses. Then, with a sigh, he slid back into her. And again, so gradually that he barely moved. Arete levered herself upward with her calves, seeking the perfect angle.

_There. Oh yes._

She melted into liquid pleasure around him. Savoring the sensation, Walter rocked his hips gently.

The apartment downstairs put on a record, and John Lennon's voice drifted up through the floor: "God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

In. And out. Natural as breath.

"I don't believe in Jesus," John Lennon wailed. "I don't believe in Kennedys. I don't believe in Buddha."

A bead of sweat dripped from Walter's chest onto hers. Arete felt it slide into the hollow of her neck, where it swayed with each of his thrusts. That glorious panic was swelling between her legs.

_I don't believe in kings. I don't believe in Elvis. _

She tensed as her release approached. He rocked into her once more, and the ecstasy poured over her. She shuddered, a cry escaping her throat.

_I don't believe in Beatles. _

Arete opened her eyes expectantly. His bright blue gaze impaled her.

"I want to watch you," she moaned.

_I just believe in me. Yoko and me. _

_And that's reality. _

Walter's hips drove against her. She clenched herself, milking him. His breath caught, and his eyes popped wide.

_I was the dreamweaver, but now I'm reborn. _

Shuddering, he groaned softly, his eyelids sagging. She stared up at him, panting; a smile curved her lips.

_I was the walrus, but now I'm John._

"I love you," she whispered, and he leaned down to kiss her, hiding his eyes from her gaze.

_The dream is over._


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Rated M for adult content. I still don't own Watchmen or the music of John Lennon. –ab

Arete stroked Walter's head soothingly.

"Be right back," she murmured. Disentangling herself, she rose and shut herself in the bathroom. She sat on the toilet to pee. As mingled urine and ejaculate streamed into the bowl, she put her face in her hands.

A heavy rain began to pound on the roof, and the record downstairs was playing again.

_As soon as you're born, they make you feel small _

_By giving you no time, instead of it all,_

'_Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all._

She flushed and cleaned up. When she opened the door, she found Walter pacing the main room, his nudity apparently forgotten. Arete could not help but run her gaze over his muscular body.

He glared at her.

"What's wrong?"

"Didn't use contraception." His blue eyes were hard and accusatory, as if she had tricked him.

Arete frowned quizzically. "Uh, yes, actually, we did. I'm on the pill."

He continued glaring.

"And I'm clean," she added, feeling that this might be a pertinent piece of information to ease his concerns. "It's been a long time since I've been with anyone, Walter. A really long time. Sex and sobriety tend not to cohabitate very well for me."

_Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,_

_And you think you're so clever and classless and free,_

_But you're still fucking peasants, as far as I can see._

Walter paused mid-pace and crossed his arms. "If you are not sexually active, why take the birth control pill?" He sounded like a debater scoring a point against his adversary.

Arete regarded him in silence for a moment, then knelt on the mattress submissively. "I take the pill because the hormones reduce the occurrence of ovarian cysts," she explained. "I've had several, and they're quite painful."

A muscle in his temple ticked. His back was ramrod straight.

_If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me._

Arete sighed. "But it's not birth control you're upset about. It's what I said, isn't it?"

He sat down cross-legged on the mattress next to her. "I hate love," he explained, as if informing her of the date. "It hurts."

"Always?" she asked, her fingers sliding across her thighs to touch his knee.

"It's like a sickness, something I can't control. I hate it." Walter stared down at her hand on his leg and sighed. "Is this what addiction feels like?"

She quirked a smile at him. "Think you're addicted to me?"

Walter pulled her into his lap, and Arete wriggled until she could wrap her legs securely around his waist. She draped her arms over his shoulders.

"It feels like my heart and my lungs and my guts have been ripped out of my body, and they're walking around without me," he whispered. "Then, you bring them back to me, and it's too much. My heart beats too fast. There's too much oxygen in my lungs." Arete stroked the back of his head. "I don't know if I can take it, doll."

"So, what? Gonna go cold turkey?" She regarded him seriously. "Want me to walk out that door?"

"Don't you dare," he rasped, his arms encircling her waist in an iron embrace as if she were struggling to escape.

Arete sighed theatrically. "Well, I can't go out that door if I don't have permission. Guess I'm staying."

He caught her lips in a slow and gentle kiss. She moaned softly.

"You _will_ have to go to work eventually," he whispered. "You should get some rest."

She shook her head 'no'.

"I'm not tired either. What do you want to do?"

Arete mouth twitched shyly. "What do _you _want to do?"

His lips parted, but no words came out. There was no mistaking the look in his eyes, however. "No point wasting the rain," he managed finally.

Arete wriggled joyfully and drew her hands down to his chest. She caressed the hard muscles there, grazing his nipples lightly from time to time. She stared into his eyes and saw his pupils dilating with desire. Her fingers dropped to his erection. He started. His lips parted and his eyelids fluttered shut as she stroked him gently.

"Will it hurt you if we...?" Walter murmured.

"If we what?" Arete adjusted her grip slightly, and he groaned.

"...do it again?"

She giggled. "Hey, _you're_ the one who's old."

"'Old'?" he repeated, smiling.

"Practically ancient! But then," she added, lifting her hips to maneuver herself over his member, "I've always had a soft spot for the antiquities."

"I'll spank you for your insolence later." He grabbed her buttocks to guide her down onto him.

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as she felt his length pushing into her. "God, Walter, that feels good."

"Don't usually like anyone calling me Walter," he gasped. "But I must admit it's gratifying to hear you moan it." He leaned her back and closed his mouth over her nipple.

"Walter," she sighed, planting her palms on the mattress behind her.

"And sighing it," he added. His slid his left hand between them and tucked his thumb under her mound.

"Walter!" she cried.

"And crying it." His words and the ensuing chuckle were somewhat muffled by her breast.

Arete rocked against him, loving the feel of his touch on her sensitive flesh. She pressed her toes against the wall for leverage. "I have to say...that I'm glad...you've decided to...make friends with the clitoris. Ohhhh..."

He buried his face between her breasts. "Trying to formulate a joke about it being easier to make you scream than most of the hardcases I've tortured, but..." His voice trailed off into a gasp of pleasure as she squeezed her passage around him.

She pressed her lips together desperately, but cries threatened to escape. Arching her back, she rubbed wantonly against him. His thumb shifted by a quarter-inch.

"Ohgodthere!" she begged. She clenched herself around him. She stared into his eyes, relishing his ragged breaths and intoxicated expression. Her entire body tensed with expectation.

"Yes, doll," he hissed. "Now."

Arete submitted, and the climax rippled through her with a delirious dreaminess.

"Christ, I can _feel _you," Walter groaned. He grasped her hips and slammed her down on him again and again. His fingers dug into her flesh. Arete saw his eyes go suddenly wide. Shuddering, he emptied himself into her. She held him until he subsided.

He buried his face in the curve of her neck. "You're my heart," he croaked miserably. "You're my goddamn heart."


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Sorry, gang, no smut in this one. There is, however, some strong language and irreligious sentiment.

"Hi," she said, blushing, as she emerged from the diner early the next morning.

"Why are you blushing?" Rorschach asked, falling into step beside her.

"I dunno. I mean, twelve hours ago you and I were...well..." Arete shrugged, grinning foolishly. "I'm acting like a total dope, aren't I?"

"Chalk it up to exhaustion," he replied gruffly, but she could hear the teasing note in his voice.

She stretched and yawned. "Yup. All I want to do is take a shower and get into bed. I don't have to see that damn diner for thirty-six hours, and I may sleep the whole time!"

Rorschach said nothing.

"Care to be my date to the Mattress Ball?" she asked mischievously.

He turned his face toward her. The swirling ink made him look all the more incredulous. "The _what_?"

"The Mattress Ball!" she repeated, laughing. "It's something my dad used to say when I was a kid. When I didn't want to go to bed, you know? 'Not sleepy? Then let's head up the stairs to the Mattress Ball!'. So whaddya say? Be my date?"

"Never seen your apartment."

Arete grabbed his gloved hand. "There's not much in this world I can fix, sugar, but that's one thing I can remedy. Coming?"

Rorschach hung back, staring across the street at her building. "Not the front door."

"Oh!" She put her hand to her mouth to cover a giggle. "Guess not, looking like that."

"Fire escape?" he suggested.

She backed away toward her building. "Alright, Romeo. I'm on the fifth floor."

He was halfway up the escape before Arete opened the window and stuck her head out. "Damn, you're fast!"

The kitchen area Rorschach crawled into was tiny. Her "efficiency" was not much larger than his, but the quality (like the neighborhood) was a good bit better. There was a small table in the kitchenette. A brass bed dominated the living area. But what truly made him smile was that every available surface (including the table and the bed) was covered in books.

Rorschach took off his hat and peeled the latex off his head. "It's like a library in here."

Arete slipped out of her light jacket and hung it on a peg by the door. She reached for his trench coat. He allowed her to unfasten it and put it on the peg as well. She set his hat and face on the table. Rorschach picked up a handful of books to examine their titles.

"Lots of poetry."

"I like words," she responded simply. She bent to undo the laces on her Chuck Taylors and toed the sneakers off. "They have power."

"They're one of the only things that does."

Arete looked at him, startled.

He replaced the books on their precarious stack and moved toward another pile. "Schweitzer....Bonhoeffer...must be ethics section." He thumbed through The Cost of Discipleship.

"Read that one?"

"Long time ago." He put the book back on its pile. "Believe him?"

"I find it hard to believe a man who kept his faith in God intact until the day the Nazis executed him," she responded wearily.

"Certain things should shake faith?"

Arete frowned. "There is no faith, Rorschach. There is no God. There's not even a fucking Prime Mover who started everything, then stepped away to let creation grind itself into dust. I thought you, of all people, would understand that."

He stared at her silently.

"Oh, please," she scoffed. "Don't tell me you're waiting for the Rapture so you can go sit on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, etcetera, etcetera?"

Rorschach began to laugh. He stepped forward and drew her into a kiss. "Stop talking like that," he murmured against her lips, "or I might begin to believe in a god who could make a woman like you."

Grinning, Arete began to unbutton his shirt. "Shower time," she chirped merrily. "I'm going to get you all nice and wet and soapy and-"

She broke off, seeing the enormous bruise on his stomach. She took a deep breath. "Rough night?"

Rorschach shrugged. "The usual."

She stared at the bruise. "You would tell me if you needed medical attention, right? I mean, if you had any reason to believe that you were, like, bleeding internally-"

"Hush, doll," he whispered, taking her hands.

Arete's eyes seemed unusually bright. "You think you're the only one walking around with their heart outside their body."

"Start the hot water. Go." Rorschach patted her lightly on the bottom.

Swallowing her tears, Arete went into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the shower. She stripped out of her clothes. She switched the water from the faucet to the showerhead. She knelt on the bathmat. She waited.

Walter was naked when he joined her. Taking her hand, he helped her up and guided her back into the tub. They showered together, quietly and efficiently. Their touches were loving but chaste. Hair was shampooed, bodies were lathered and rinsed. Then Arete shut the water off and stepped out to pull a fresh towel off the rack. She dried Walter patiently, fluffing his hair until the curls were less sodden than damp. He dried her with the towel and combed her wet hair back from her face.

"Rub some lotion on my back?" she asked sleepily.

He pumped the dispenser and warmed the cream in his hands. It gave off a pleasant and familiar fragrance as he massaged it into her skin.

"Thought this smell was perfume," he commented.

She shook her head, smiling. "Never wear the stuff."

Walter was enjoying the moisturizing process, so he continued onto her arms, then her legs.

"What's the scent? Vanilla?"

"And jasmine," she confirmed.

"Smells like home," he murmured.

Arete reached under the sink to find him a new toothbrush. They brushed their teeth in companionable silence. When she spat into the sink and smiled tiredly at him in the mirror, Walter's insides flip-flopped.

She took his hand to lead him to bed, but he held back.

"I have to..." he explained, looking pointedly at the toilet.

Arete kissed him lightly and tottered toward her bed. Primly, Walter shut the bathroom door. She slipped under the covers and stretched. The sound of his urination was oddly soothing. Half-asleep, she heard the sink running, the door open, the lights switch off. Then Walter was easing into the bed with her. She twined herself around him like a vine, careful not to put pressure on his bruise.

He kissed the top of her head. "Almost dawn."

"A new day," she remarked, and tumbled toward sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Adult situations. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!!

She startled awake and looked at the alarm clock: 10:30 a.m.

"All right, doll?" he asked from the kitchen table, naked from the waist up but wearing Rorschach's striped trousers. He had been writing in a small journal that she had come to realize were Rorschach's memoranda.

Arete, stretching, eyed his exposed torso.

"Not a piece of meat," he teased.

She wriggled out from under the covers and walked toward him. His eyes roamed over her naked body just as eagerly as her gaze had raked his flesh. Grinning, she leaned forward to place a kiss on his lips. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Did for a few hours," he insisted, turning his cheek against her cradling palm. "Go back to sleep."

Arete pouted. "I don't wanna sleep if you're up. Just let me go pee, then I'll fix us something to eat."

His face screwed up at her explicitness.

"Pardon me: 'let me use the _powder room_'," she corrected, giggling.

Arete was splashing some water on her face when she heard an odd noise from the main room. She poked her head out of the door, still mopping her face with the towel. "Everything okay?"

He was kneeling on the bed, tugging firmly on the brass headboard. He turned at her words to see her confused expression. "Stockings? Scarves? Anything to bind you with."

"Are you...testing the structural integrity of my bed frame?"

He gave her a warning look that sent a shiver of desire through her. She went into the closet and pulled out a length of nylon rope. Walter frowned.

"It's for drying laundry, silly!"

He looked doubtful but took the rope from her hands without comment. Arete was practically bouncing up and down. The thought of Walter restraining her with the rope was hugely exciting. She bit her lower lip impatiently.

****

He moved so suddenly she could never have stopped him, even had she wanted to. His left hand grabbed her hair in a fierce grip and pulled her face toward his. Arete yielded. He felt her muscles relax.

"Good, doll," he whispered. "Down you go."

He yanked her hair again for good measure, enjoying the way her lips parted and her eyelids sagged. Having no previous experience with such things, he was unsure if her rapid submission was a testament to his dominance or her nature. He wanted to believe that she would not submit in this way for anyone else but him. Thoughtfully, he cupped her breast with his right hand. Her nipple sprang immediately to attention. He could practically smell how much she craved his touch.

"Do you trust me, doll?" he asked, cranking her head back a little further.

"Yes, sir." The soft, breathy voice of her submissive self caressed something inside of him. It inspired that odd mixture of protectiveness and need he was beginning to associate with Arete. His thumb traced her nipple, and she trembled delightfully. He admired the curve of her throat, exposed under his gaze. He released his grip on her hair.

"Sit," he ordered. "Back against the headboard."

Arete obeyed smoothly, her slender limbs flowing over the covers to take her position. He followed her onto the bed and propped several pillows behind her, until her hips were well forward of her shoulders. He checked to make sure that there were no knobs on the headboard protruding into her back. Every time he touched her, Arete moaned softly. His erection was starting to become uncomfortable inside his pants.

Anticipating his request, Arete raised her arms to the height of her head. He parted her legs to kneel between them and began to bind her wrists to the brass whorls of the headboard. A length of rope dragged over her belly, and she gasped with pleasure. From then on, he made a point of trailing the nylon against her flesh as he worked.

Soon both of her wrists were tied securely. His eyes devoured the contrast between white rope and tan flesh.

"Beautiful creature," he whispered.

Her dark eyelashes fluttered.

He placed his right hand between her breasts, feeling the swell of each soft mound. Arete arched her back and thrust herself toward his touch. He slid his hand up slowly. Soon the base of her throat was caught in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. She tilted her head back to give him greater access.

Without further ado, he slipped the first and middle fingers of his left hand between her legs and into her passage. She was positively dripping. His thumb brushed her nub idly, and Arete bit back a cry. He smiled at her responsiveness. When he began to stroke her intently in that spot she had begged him to touch the last time, her breathing became ragged.

For just a moment he let the fear own him. Then his right hand began to squeeze.

Her eyes flew open as the pressure against her neck grew. He could see her fear.

"Trust me, doll," he whispered. "Just think about _this_." His thumb circled her swollen bud.

Proudly, he watched her subside. She truly did trust him. All the tension in her body flowed down to her hips, where her climax began to build again.

Carefully, he applied more pressure to her throat. His left hand worked busily between her legs. Arete's face suffused with blood that was not a blush. Her chest began to heave. The panic would come soon. He had to time it just right.

He felt her thighs tensing around him, and he squeezed harder. Her plump lips parted, gasping for air. He held her gaze with his own and tightened his grip. She strained uselessly against the bindings on her wrists.

_Loveyouloveyouloveyouloveyou_...

Then her whole body thrashed, and her muscles were spasming around his fingers, and he could see in her eyes the lightning ecstasy rocketing through her nervous system. Her climax seemed to last for an hour.

At last Arete shuddered, and he removed his hand from her throat. She dragged in an enormous breath. He kissed her face as she gasped. Violent shivers rippled through her body. He soothed her, murmuring gentle words of comfort.

When her breath had nearly returned to normal, he untied her wrists and clasped her against him. She curled up in his embrace, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"I wasn't afraid," she murmured. "Were you?"

"Terrified."

"But you did it anyway."

He kissed the top of her head.

"Your iron will is one of the sexiest things about you," she commented, giggling against his chest.

"And the others?"

"Take your pants off, and I'll give you a demonstration."

A/N: In case you missed the first warning, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Unless you're a secret vigilante who figures he knows exactly how much pressure he can apply to a small woman's throat before she completely loses consciousness.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Rated M for strong language, sexual situations, drug use, and purple Rorschach prose.

*****

He smelled eggs frying and bread toasting, and he was naked under the covers of a bed fragrant with Arete and sex, and he kept his eyes closed to keep the dream going for as long as possible.

Then the dream got better, because Arete slipped into the bed with him. She was not naked, but he could feel the warm curves of her body pressing against his back as she spooned him. She nuzzled his neck. Her hand slipped under his arm to clasp his chest.

"Walter?"

And for a moment he was a different man, and this was his wife waking him for breakfast, and at the table would be sitting a little boy with dark hair and blue eyes and a little girl with red hair and brown eyes, and he would read the paper and drink coffee, and the world was not a rabid animal drowning in its own blood and excrement.

But then he woke up fully, and it was Arete snuggling him to life, and the paper on the table was _The New Frontiersman_, and his black-and-white face lay where the children should be. It was the second day he had slept in Arete's bed, and he was Rorschach, and it was enough.

He gripped the hand on his chest. "What time is it?"

"A little after four," she sighed. "P.M."

"Should go out. Get to work," he muttered, but made no move to rise.

"I made eggs. And there's toast and orange juice. At least eat something first."

He rolled over carefully, negotiating the tangle of body parts, and ended up facing her. Arete smiled. Her almond-shaped eyes were still a little swollen from sleeping. She shifted positions and giggled.

"Morning wood."

He frowned, confused, then realized that her hip was mashed against a sizeable erection, which twitched lazily.

"Guess I've woken the sleeping lion," she teased.

He palmed her buttock. "Still saddlesore?"

"Yeah. But I still want more."

He slipped his hand under the elastic of her panties and tugged them off. Then he rolled onto his back, pulling her thigh across his hips. Arete sat up and braced her small hands on his chest. In a now-familiar movement, he positioned himself with his hand and pushed into her. She hummed with pleasure. For long minutes she rode him, while his hands played over her body.

During the previous day's lovemaking, he had given her permission to cry out. The catlike shrills of sex had always disgusted him, waking a long-buried memory he did not want disinterred. But he was not immune to the prideful joy of _making_ his beloved scream, and her wails of ecstasy had fed the fire in his own body.

"The neighbors!" she had protested.

"_Fuck_ the neighbors," he had growled, burying himself inside her and drawing another moan of pleasure.

Now he smiled at her to let her know she was free. Tiny mewls began to escape her lips. As she rocked faster, she started to cry out with each thrust. From time to time he would buck his hips in such a way that she would throw her head back and moan.

Her dark eyes locked with his blue ones. His fingers toyed with her nipples. He watched with delight as her pink tongue snaked out to moisten her lips. She began to rock faster.

"Walter!" she gasped.

The sound of his name sent a frisson down his spine. In no time her frantic movements brought them both to climax. He drew her head down and claimed her mouth with a kiss.

*****

"Tina?" Arete pushed open the door to the Gunga Diner's ladies' restroom. "I need to run to the drugstore for my prescription. Can you take over? Tina, are you sick, hon? You've been in here a while."

There was no answer.

Arete frowned and peered under the stalls. There: a pair of legs. Tina's Keds. They were not moving. One of the shoelaces was missing.

"Tina?"

Foreboding roiled in Arete's stomach as she crouched to duck under the stall door. Tina sat on the toilet, fully clothed, slumped over. The missing shoelace was wound around the older woman's left bicep. A syringe jutted out of the vein inside her elbow.

Arete gasped and bucked backward, knocking her head on the bottom edge of the stall door. Her heart began to race. A wave of nausea rolled over her. She knelt on the floor, hunched over, waiting for the unpleasant sensation to pass.

_Deep breaths, girl. Deep breaths._

She looked back at the Keds.

She swallowed, then wriggled under the door into the stall. Tina was breathing shallowly.

_Not dead. Not dead_.

Arete carefully removed the hypodermic from Tina's arm, bent the needle against the wall, and dumped it in the sanitary napkins disposal box. Another syringe, full of a translucent liquid that Arete recognized all too well, sat on top of the toilet paper dispenser.

She decided to ignore it for the time being.

She slapped Tina's face lightly. Getting no response, she pinched the blonde's earlobe sharply. Tina gasped, her eyes shooting open. She looked around in confusion.

"Nodding on the goddamn job," Arete hissed.

The blonde stared at her without comprehension. Rising unsteadily, she unfastened the latch on the stall door and tottered out to the sink.

Arete closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her fingers, almost of their own accord, snaked out to grab the full syringe from the top of the toilet paper dispenser. The hypodermic went into her jacket pocket, and she followed the other waitress to the sink. Clucking her tongue, she unfastened the shoelace from the blonde's arm and knelt to thread it back through her sneaker. Tina turned on the faucet. Staring into the mirror, she splashed cold water on her face.

"Are you gonna tell Elena?" she asked dully.

Arete gritted her teeth. "Not if you get out there and do your job. And promise never to do that shit at work again."

The women's eyes met in the mirror over the sink.

Arete turned on her heel. "I'm going to the goddamn pharmacy. I'll be back in fifteen." The restroom door sucked shut behind her.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Rated M. Sorry to those who thought they knew where this was going (though it ain't gone yet).

******

Rorschach arrived as usual to walk her home. The nights were starting to get colder, and Arete huddled inside her jacket in the early morning chill.

"What's wrong?" he rasped, breaking the silence.

_I have a syringe full of heroin in my pocket_.

_I want to use so bad I can hardly breathe._

_I love you._

"Nothing," she answered.

Rorschach cocked his head at her in such a way that Arete knew he was staring at her.

"Sure?"

_Heroin._

_It's in my pocket._

_Pocket._

_Junk._

_In my pocket._

"Just tired," she replied, smiling gently.

His face swung forward. "Have to stay out a little longer. Drop you off first."

Arete made a face. "Yes, sir," she said miserably.

Rorschach twitched strangely at her words and adjusted his hat.

In the shadows outside her building, he drew up the latex to reveal his mouth. She kissed him desperately.

_Don't go_.

But then he was walking away, and she trudged up the stairs to her apartment.

The longing rose in her like a sneeze.

_Horse._

She showered and slipped into an oversized t-shirt.

_Pocket_.

She knelt on the floor, pretending that Walter sat in the chair at her kitchen table. She imagined the scritch-scratch of his pen, the scent of his body, the sound of his breathing. Her knees ached on the hard floor.

_In your pocket._

She flung herself on the bed and took deep breaths. Fighting back tears, she wondered if Walter would forgive her for inflicting pain on herself. Pain would

_pocket_

distract her. Holding the

_needle_

flame of a lighter against her forearm had worked in the past. Or maybe she could take some

_junk_

cold medicine to knock herself out until it was time to see Walter.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

Arete was walking across the room. Arete was digging into her coat pocket. Arete was gripping a hypodermic needle in her small fist and stepping toward the bathroom. Arete was sitting on the toilet lid, propping her heel up, searching for an unscarred vein between her toes.

Arete was weeping.

The spike entered her flesh easily, like a small animal burrowing into its lair.

Arete was looking at the front door and willing a red-haired man to enter.

She pushed the plunger down.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Rated M for language, drugs, and lemony darkness.

******

Rorschach would swing by the Gunga Diner from time to time while Arete was still working. It gave him a certain voyeuristic thrill to observe her moving around inside the lighted restaurant, a feeling entirely different from the satisfaction he felt when Walter sat at a table to watch her while he ate. Once he had fantasized about calling her from a nearby payphone to give her instructions; he would order her to go into the ladies' room, think about him, and pleasure herself. Then he could spy on her while she returned to serve the customers who had no idea what he had just made his doll do.

For the last week Rorschach had been busy. There was some kind of turf war going on, and lots of bodies were dropping. He suspected there was a new distributor moving into the area. Regime changes were never without victims. Consequently, he had not seen as much of Arete recently as he would have liked.

Liked? Craved. A weaker man would not have been able to resist the siren call of time with her. But Rorschach needed to keep his priorities straight.

Tonight there was a light September drizzle falling. It made the city stink. He looked over the edge of the roof to spot Arete, but he could not locate her inside the diner. Suddenly a figure moved in the alley where he normally waited for her. Rorschach squinted and recognized Arete's short dark hair and white jacket.

_What time? Late?_

The clock at the bank down the street read 12:08. She was working the eight-to-four tonight; there were hours still before her shift was over. What was she doing outside? She stood, fidgeting in the darkness, like someone waiting.

_Who_?

Arete went still and straightened up as a man approached, splashing through the puddles on the sidewalk. In the dark and the rain, Rorschach could hardly identify anything about the stranger. The man spoke briefly to Arete, but the words disappeared in the cool night air. Her white-sheathed arm reached out, and she clasped the stranger's hand. The man leaned in quickly, then he headed off down the street, head swiveling as if he were concerned about being observed. When he passed under a streetlamp, Rorschach spotted a bright blue topknot with a chopstick through it.

Arete hurried back into the diner. She stripped off her coat, shaking moisture out of her hair, and went to use the restroom. Rorschach waited, watching, until she returned to work.

_Hurm_.

******

"Hi, it's me!" she called as she entered his apartment. "You'll never believe what I just-"

Arete broke off when she saw _him_ sitting at the table.

Rorschach.

He was writing furiously in his journal, in that bizarre cipher-like chickenscratch that no one but he could read. He turned his head slightly at her approach.

Arete stood in the middle of the room, frowning. "It's one in the afternoon. Why are you-?"

"Give me your purse," he rasped. "Kneel down."

She clutched her bag, heart racing. "Why?"

At her words Rorschach turned fully in his chair to face her. "Did I stutter?" he asked, his voice laden with withering disdain.

Arete's hand went to her mouth. Her eyes fluttered shut.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath. "Shall I just show you what you're looking for?" she whispered.

His silence was an assent.

Her trembling fingers dug into the purse, unzipping the side lining where a normal woman might keep lipstick or tampons. She withdrew a small fabric case and placed it on the table by his hand. Then she dropped to the floor in a kneeling position.

His gloved hand closed over the case. She watched with trepidation as he stroked the zipper, almost lovingly. Then he covered the case with his hat and rose to his feet.

"Didn't believe it," he muttered, as if to himself.

"I didn't want you to-"

"How many times?"

Arete closed her eyes.

"How many?" he growled.

"I'm counting!" she wailed.

Rorschach sat down heavily. "Christ," he swore.

She took a deep breath and stared into the swirling pattern of his face. "I need your help, sir."

The blotches tumbled slowly, uncaringly.

"It's worse this time. I need your help to kick this again. I need your strength."

"Not about _strength_," he spat. "Simple, really. You love junk more than me."

Arete's mouth dropped open. "No!" she gasped. She stared wretchedly at him, clasping her hands between her thighs to prevent herself crawling toward him. He would never forgive her if she begged. "I love you more than life."

"Should just kill you then. Put you out of your misery."

Even now the addiction was uncoiling inside her like a cobra in the cool of the evening; she wanted a hit. In the blindness of her shame and need, death did not seem so terrible. Arete bowed her head and accepted her master's judgment.

"No compromises, sir."

With a sudden movement he tore off Rorschach's face and crouched in front of her. His blue eyes were cold as the grave. "I can live without you, Arete," he said slowly.

She winced as if he had struck her.

Walter reached up to stroke the soft hair at the base of her neck. "But I don't want to.'

Her clasped hands gripped tighter together. Tears streamed silently down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, sir," she whispered. "Please help me."

He leaned forward and kissed the salty wetness from her face. She tilted her chin up to press her lips against his mouth. He pulled her to the floor, kissing her fiercely, grinding his body down against her. Her hands slid under the collar of his coat, and he shrugged out of it. Her fingers scrabbled his shirttails out of his pants, then went to the buttons.

"I hate you," Walter gasped.

Arete lifted his undershirt, rolling him onto his back, and kissed his belly. "I know," she murmured. She flicked her tongue against the hard muscles of his stomach.

"No, I don't hate _you_. I hate _love_. _Love_ you. I hate...I hate this," he groaned deliriously as she unfastened his pants. "Love...ahh..."

Her small fingers closed over his half-hardened member. She blew on it gently and felt it stiffen. She slid her mouth down around it slowly. Walter tensed, every muscle in his body flexing. Arete circled her thumb and forefinger around the base of his manhood, using light pressure to draw his foreskin back. Then she swirled her tongue around the exposed head.

His back arched spasmodically, and he grabbed her hair in his fist. "Stop," he snarled.

Arete did not stop, despite the tug of his hand on her scalp, which pulled her down into subspace. She made love to him with her lips and tongue, relaxing her throat to allow him all the way in. She had imagined this for so long. Had he ever fantasized about it?

Walter's breath hitched. "Don't stop," he moaned, his muscles trembling with tension.

Arete had no intention of disobeying that order. She re-doubled her efforts eagerly. The fingers tangled in her hair gripped so hard that his hand was shaking. She relished the pain in her scalp and translated it into pleasure for him.

Suddenly he wriggled violently, trying to drag her head away from him. Arete fought him and was rewarded by the flood of his climax filling her mouth. She swallowed him down gleefully. She continued to suckle his softening member, lapping up any stray drops of his ecstasy.

When she looked up, Walter had flung his arm over his eyes. "Why did you do that?" he muttered.

Arete stroked his belly softly until his breathing slowed, and he fell asleep.

A/N: Um. I don't like the way this chapter came out, really. Any suggestions welcome. We're kind of in Act 4, if you will. Although everything's in my head, it's not flowing very smoothly.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Rated M for language, drugs, and adult situations. Let the AR commence.

****

Dr. Malcolm Long held up another Rorschach blot to the man identified in police records as Kovacs, Walter J. (prisoner #62186).

"Now then. What do you see in this one, Walter?"

Glacier-blue eyes examined the card. _Arete screaming_. _Lips swollen. Tears running down her face._

"Do you see anything?"

For two weeks he had believed her, trusted that everything would be as it had been before. He had truly thought that he could fight the addiction and win.

"Love you," she had trilled as she left for work that evening. He had smiled and waved 'bye'. He had admired her retreating form. He had wondered why he was so lucky. He went to the market to buy her red roses.

Five hours later Rorschach was following a tip, hot on the trail of the new distributor who started the turf war. He climbed down a fire escape and through the open window of a low-rent apartment. The main room reeked of stale food and marijuana. Two men sat on the couch watching a re-run of 'Star Trek'. They passed a hash pipe back and forth between them and did not hear him enter.

"Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"

Rorschach cracked their heads together. Collecting pipe and lighter, he threw both items in the kitchen sink. No point setting the whole place on fire.

Yet.

He crept down the narrow hallway, heading for the back bedroom. Music trailed under the closed door. He passed a side bedroom (empty) and a bathroom. He thought he heard a voice in the back room.

His source had said the new distributor was a knot-top and called himself Billy Jack. The Knotzi primarily dealt in heroin but was also moving in on the KT-28 market. If it was not Billy Jack in that back bedroom, it was likely someone who could tell Rorschach where the dealer was.

He kicked open the door. Raucous music blasted him as his eyes swiveled immediately to the man sitting on the futon. Rorschach recognized the blue topknot in the faint light from the window.

"Billy Jack?" he snarled.

The Knotzi had been leaning his head back against the futon, clearly enjoying the oral ministrations of the girl who knelt between his legs. Billy Jack sat up at Rorschach's entrance and shoved the whore away, reaching for the gun that sat on an upturned crate. Rorschach beat him to it.

"Need to talk," he rasped, liberating the ammunition from the weapon. He slipped the bullets into one pocket and the piece into another. "Cover yourself."

Billy Jack remained frozen on the couch for a moment, then stuffed his genitalia back into his pants.

"Know who I am, Billy Jack?"

The pusher nodded nervously. "Look, man, I got plenty of shit here. It's yours. There's a couple hundred dollars in the other room. Take the dope, the money, whatever."

Rorschach was silent.

"Wha...what do you want?" the Knotzi stuttered.

His attention was drawn by a movement out of the corner of his eye. "She a dealer?"

"Naw. The bitch just needed a hit, didn't have any money left. Want her? She's yours, brother."

Rorschach stared at Billy Jack long enough to express that he was not, in fact, this man's brother. Then he turned to the hooker on the floor.

It was Arete.

"Walter, come on, just tell me what you see?" Dr. Long urged, tapping the card on the table to attract the prisoner's attention.

"Ducks," said #62186 woodenly. "Ducks swimming on a pond."

Rorschach was stomping Billy Jack's head, but it was already a bloody pulp, and there was no point wasting more time on the man. The vigilante kicked the corpse in the gut, wishing he had not killed the knot-top so quickly.

Arete was huddled on the floor by the futon, hands clasped over her mouth. She was still wearing her uniform from the diner.

Rorschach turned to her, and the words swirled through his head

_you were lying_

_ever clean_

_thought I was a fool_

_used me_

_hate you_

_love you_

_picked me _

_why_

but there was no breath in his lungs to speak them.

She crawled toward him.

His lips curled into a sneer. Her begging would not sway him a second time.

Her face peered up, pale as the moon. Dark circles shadowed her almond-shaped eyes. Her lips were gray and trembling, still swollen from Billy Jack's prick.

"Do it," she gasped.

Rorschach's hands flexed at his sides.

Arete began to sob. She lifted the skirt of her uniform to show him the letters scarred into her thigh.

_Filthy bitch_.

He remembered the first time he had seen the words.

"You're Rorschach," she reminded him, reaching for his pant leg.

He took a step backward.

"DO IT!" she screamed. "End it!"

Rorschach turned to the door. Stopping, he grabbed the frame and looked back at her. It was a mistake: he did not want to remember her like this, shamed and broken on the floor of a dead heroin dealer.

"You're my goddamn heart," Kovacs whispered.

"If I see you again, I'll kill you," Rorschach hissed.

Her wail of rage followed him out.

"Ducks on a pond," he told Dr. Long. "Swimming."

A/N: Again, this chapter was better in my head...

I hope the flashing backandforth is not too disorienting. Or, at least, that it's disorienting in proper service of the narrative. Suggestions welcome, as always.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: AR in full effect. You will recognize some lines from the GN. We're almost at there...

BTW, if you haven't seen this yummy pic of JEH with the other male leads of Wm, check it:

http:

//jackieearlehaley

.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/from-

ellegantx1

.jpg

****

The junk was humming through her veins. Everyone in the diner moved too slow; the light was too bright. The pig's mouth was moving.

"When we questioned you before, why didn't you tell us that you had a relationship with Kovacs?"

Arete stared at Detective Fine blankly. "I don't know what you mean by 'relationship'. And I haven't seen him in almost six weeks."

"Seen Rorschach?" asked Fine's partner.

Arete looked at Elena and Tina. They turned their faces away.

"You knew Kovacs was Rorschach, didn't you? We have witnesses, Miss Franklin. Some say they saw you with Kovacs; some say they saw you with Rorschach."

"What did Walter say?" she asked the detectives.

They exchanged a glance. "He won't talk about you," Fine replied.

A cruel smile played over her lips.

"Do you admit that you knew he was Rorschach?"

Arete remembered how her face had looked in the mirror with the black-and-white latex covering it. She told the cops nothing.

The chubby, dark-haired pig grabbed her arms and thrust them behind her back. "Arete Franklin, we are arresting you for aiding and abetting the known felon Rorschach, a.k.a. Walter Joseph Kovacs."

Arete felt the cuffs lock around her wrists. She remembered Walter binding her to the frame of her bed with nylon rope.

"You have the right to remain silent..."

She did.

****

"We do not do this thing because it is permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we are compelled."

Mal looked down at his notes. "So this...compulsion...is what motivates Rorschach."

"Yes."

"What motivates Walter Kovacs?"

The prisoner's brows contracted slightly.

The psychiatrist sighed. "I suppose that you know about Areety Franklin, Walter. They transferred her from Riker's Island this morning, and I had the chance to visit with her. What can you tell me about Areety?"

"'Air-i-tee'," the prisoner corrected. "Rhymes with 'charity'. It means 'excellence', 'virtue'." His upper lip curled slightly.

Dr. Long repeated the name cautiously with the correct pronunciation. "Beg your pardon," he said gruffly. He made a note. "What can you tell me about her, Walter?"

"Junkie whore."

Mal waited for more, but Kovacs simply stared at him.

"I understand that Riker's put her through detoxification for the heroin before she came here. Withdrawal from opiate addiction is not a pleasant process. She looked quite...worn...when I saw her."

The redhead shrugged.

"She was even more, ah, laconic than you. In fact, she didn't say one word the entire time."

The prisoner did not bite at this bait.

Long blew air out through loose lips. "Walter, she hasn't spoken to anyone since her arrest. Can you shed any light on that?"

"A doll is silent without its master."

The words were delivered in such a clipped tone that Mal heard them correctly, but was scarcely able to process their meaning.

"I'm sorry?"

The prisoner gazed.

"Frankly, Walter, what's of greater concern than her selective mutism is that she won't eat. If she doesn't get something down in the next twenty-four hours, they'll have to force-feed her. With a tube." Long winced sympathetically.

Bruised hands clenched on top of knees.

Mal examined Arete's mugshot, fascinated. He tried to picture her romantically involved with the man who sat before him. An adult relationship: the only one he could find any record of. He needed to pursue this.

"Do you know, Walter: her behavior reminds me of another well-known case. Are you familiar with Charles Manson and his so-called 'Family'?"

Kovacs sniffed.

"You see, Manson continued to wield some sort of psychological power over the females in his circle even after his arrest. These girls would follow his example, even going so far as to shave their hair and incise crosses into their foreheads." The doctor leaned forward, warming to his subject. "Correct me if I am wrong, Walter, but I suspect that you have some control over Arete's behavior: her silence, her refusal to eat. Is it a hunger strike of some kind? Do you know something I can tell her to stop this?"

Kovacs' eyes fluttered shut for a moment, then re-opened. There was no other response.

Dr. Long tried another tack. "For how long were you intimate with Arete?"

The prisoner produced a sneer of such disdain that Mal recoiled.

Was Kovacs incapable of physical intimacy with a woman? An intriguing possibility. The psychiatrist wrote "_impotent?_" on his notepad.

"She's in segregation as well, Walter. They're afraid to release her into the general population, especially after your...incident...yesterday in the cafeteria. All this bad blood: it might get directed at her. Had you considered that possibility, Walter?"

The redhead snorted. "Piece of human refuse in C-block told me he would rape her with a chair leg."

Dr. Long cleared his throat, repulsed both by the threat and the coldness in Kovacs' voice. "Would you say that you were in love with Arete?"

"Want to go back to my cell."

"Sure, Walter," Mal agreed with regret. "We can stop here for today."

As prisoner #62186 walked the gamut back to the segregation wing, flanked by two hacks, he ignored the insults flung at him like feces. In fact, he barely heard the catcalls and oaths. He was sitting at the table in his apartment, working on an article for the newspaper, and Arete knelt quietly at his feet. The dark locks of her pixie-cut fluttered gently in the breeze from the open window. Face relaxed, her almond-shaped eyes were fixed on a spot near his knee. Her small hands rested on her thighs, almost entirely covering the etched-in words. Her breasts rose and fell gently with the rhythm of her breath.

Soon he would stop writing. He would draw her into his lap and grow drunk with her scent. He would feel her arms twine around him; he would bury himself inside her and draw from her lips the name that he only ever wanted _her_ to say.

Soon he would cement her emotional peace. He would reclaim her from the poison she put in her veins. He would take the gift she offered him and possess her completely.

The prisoner entered his cell and sat on the bunk.

Soon.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: AR in full effect. You will recognize several lines from the GN. This is it...

****

She lay on her back, staring up at the concrete ceiling. She had barely felt anything in six weeks. Then she had survived the shakes, the sweats, the nausea, the diarrhea, the pain, and the fear once again. She had done it cuffed to a hospital bed in one of the world's largest prison complexes. She had survived, and now she was "clean-and-sober".

The hunger had raged in her belly for two days and then subsided. It had been replaced by a low-level high. Her brain seemed to be operating with an elevated sense of awareness. To a certain extent, food repelled her now. No matter: she was not worthy of nourishment.

_I will not see this body injured or pleasured without my permission_.

Now she just felt wrung out and hollow, like a marionette without its puppeteer.

It was fine. She did not need to feel anything else.

Arete was waiting.

*****

"...these things come back to haunt us. Incidentally, that guy you burned is dying: maybe tomorrow, maybe Thursday, Friday. But don't worry: it'll never reach court. You neither. See, when he croaks, this place blows, and then you die by inches."

"Tall order."

Michael clenched his fists, but Big Figure chortled. "Oh, yeah, Rorschach. There's something I forgot."

The hefty man called Lawrence grinned broadly.

"Your _friend_," Big Figure explained. "That cute little gook piece of tail. We'll bring her up here for a visitation, but I think we'll allow the conjugal rights to Lawrence here. And Michael. And half this GODDAMN PRISON!" The dwarf recovered from his momentary rage and puffed his cigar. "Then I'll have her suck me off while these two take you apart."

Michael scratched his balls contemplatively.

"Now _that's _what I call a happy ending."

******

Arete heard the muted _blumph_ of a smoke bomb and knew it had begun. She crawled off her bunk and knelt on the floor. The prison-issue dress was thin and provided little protection against the cold concrete. She lifted the hem to allow the chill direct contact with her knees. This served to distract her from the shouts and bangs echoing around her.

Even in segregation, she had heard the rumors. She knew what had started the riot, and she knew who would become an unfortunate victim of the violence.

Perhaps he was already dead.

"Praying, sweet thing?" The tall blond prisoner stood outside her cell. He swung a key ring around the index finger of his left hand.

Arete stared up at him calmly, but the adrenaline was starting to pump into her veins. She welcomed it. She might need it.

Blondie began to try keys in the lock of her cell. Arete observed the process in silence. The grinding and clacking of each failed twist made her heart jump. The blond prisoner just smiled. After a moment, a bear-sized prisoner with dark hair joined the blond man. He was carrying an arc welder.

"Want me to cut it, Michael?" the dark-haired man said eagerly. He proffered the large tool as if there might be some confusion about his meaning.

Michael shook his head and jingled the keys. "Nah. Only got a few more to try. And the boss'll kill us if the rod is used up before we get over there."

"Where'd you get those?"

"Mulhearney," the blond grunted, testing another key.

Smokey the Bear leered at Arete. She glared back.

"Real bubbly, ain't she?"

Michael snorted. "Hunh. _He_'s not exactly Mr. Rogers."

The lock clicked.

"Well, look at that," a younger, black prisoner declared, coming up behind the other two. A skinny Latino joined them.

"Pit, Rico. Good," Michael said. "One of you take her legs."

Pit frowned at Arete, chuckling. "Come on, man. What is she? Ninety-five pounds soaking wet?"

"Yeah?" the blond challenged. "How big is Rorschach?"

_He's not dead_. The realization flashed through her mind like summer lightning. _He's not dead yet._

Sniffing his acceptance, Pit followed Michael into the cell. The Latino man pushed past the other two and grabbed Arete by the front of her shirt. His other hand began to undo his pants.

"Rico, what the fuck?"

"_Oye_, just need a second."

"No time for that, asshole. The boss is waiting. Just wait 'til we get her upstairs, okay?"

Arete winced as Rico crushed her jaw in his hand, forcing her mouth open.

"Suck it, baby."

He thrust himself inside her face. Arete gagged. She fought for breath. All she could see was the prisoner's blue shirt flapping in her eyes.

_He's not dead_.

Steeling herself, Arete clamped down on the man's penis with her teeth and ground her aching jaws. Rico howled.

"FUCK!"

He struck her across the crown of her head. Pain arced through her scalp, and she let go.

Pit was laughing. "Should have kicked her teeth out first, you dumbshit."

Arete spat gore and fought back the bile rising in her throat.

_He's not dead_.

Michael grabbed her wrists, and Pit latched onto her ankles. She dangled between them like a bloodstained jump rope. Struggling did her no good, but she struggled anyway, the skirt of her dress slipping down toward her hips. They carried her, thrashing, through the chaotic hell that was Sing Sing Prison. Screaming men ran amok. Dead guards were scattered here and there. Smoke billowed through the bars of cells. They climbed a flight of stairs, and Arete could hear the baying of a crowd. Seconds later she saw the throng pressing into the men's segregation wing. She fought her captors harder.

"...off his eyelids, and then I'll..."

"Figure, you better let us at him!"

"Come on, boys, let us through," Michael bellowed. "Boss' orders."

Arete barely registered individual faces as Michael and Pit barged through the crush of bodies. She wrestled against the prisoners' iron grips, but she was not strong enough. The weeks of using, the detox process, the starvation; they had weakened her incredibly.

She could see the cell now, and a pair of icy blue eyes. She twisted desperately.

_No. Please. No_.

A little man stood before Rorschach's cell. She knew who he must be: Big Figure. The dwarf looked from her white prison-issue panties to the blood on her face and dress. He removed the cigar from his mouth.

"Have to do a little persuading, boys?"

Michael yanked her upright and wrapped himself around her arms and chest. Pit maintained his grip on her ankles. She had better leverage from this position, but her exhausted body could not provide much force. She wriggled like a fish. She did not look at Rorschach, but she was hardly aware of anything but his gaze.

"Crazy bitch bit Rico's cock off," Smokey the Bear said from somewhere behind her. He brought the arc welder forward and laid it on the ground at the corner of Rorschach's cell.

Big Figure raised an eyebrow. "No luck finding the keys, Lawrence?"

Lawrence shook his sizeable head.

Big Figure puffed contemplatively on his cigar for a moment, watching the prisoner.

"Aren't you going to try to save her, Rorschach?" he asked finally. "Would you like to open negotiations perhaps?"

Arete stopped struggling and began to laugh. The wheezing hysterics sounded strange in her own ears after so much silence. Big Figure stared at her as if she were a two-headed calf.

"Fucking psycho, just like him," somebody murmured.

"Boy, did _you_ guys bet on the wrong horse!" she rasped. "Think you can hurt Rorschach by hurting me? Last time I saw him, he swore to kill me himself!"

For the first time, Arete allowed herself to look at the redheaded man in the cell. His face looked less battered than she had expected after ten days in prison. But then, he had always been able to take care of himself. Walter's face stared back at her with dead eyes.

"Is that true, Rorschach?" Big Figure cooed in a saccharine voice. "Trouble in paradise? I'd ask if she screwed your best friend, but I don't think you have one, do you?"

The crowd behind her hooted with derision.

"Let her go, boys."

"What, boss?" Michael asked.

"Let her go," Big Figure repeated, enunciating clearly. "Let's give them a last moment, shall we? Before the fun starts."

Michael and Pit let go suddenly. Arete dropped unceremoniously to the floor. The prisoners behind her catcalled as she stumbled to her feet and smoothed down her dress. She dragged her arm across her mouth, wiping off Rico's blood.

"Let me at that crazy chink pussy, Figure!"

"Me love you long time!"

Arete approached the cell. Walter simply stared. She curled her small fingers around the bars.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed soundlessly.

_I'm your girl_.

Something flitted over his face, but it passed quickly.

_I'm your girl_.

Her dark eyes twitched to the side, indicating the crowd of men behind her.

He nodded, ever so slightly.

Her lips formed the words: "I love you." She exhaled slowly.

"Hey, Rorschach," one of the prisoners called. "I want to know what to moan while I'm fucking her. What's her name?"

"Rorschach's doll," the redheaded man snapped in response.

Then a strong, freckled hand shot through the bars and closed around Arete's neck. She clenched the bars in her fists, forcing more air out of her lungs. He squeezed.

_I'm your girl_.

Her eyes went wide. Her chest burned. She willed herself under. Her vision collapsed until there were only two blue stars shining.

_No panic. No fear. _

_Thy will be done._

_I'm your girl_.

As if from a distance, Arete heard an uproar behind her. Hands scrabbled, tugging. She gripped the bars tighter, refusing to be pulled away.

"Goddamn, you crazy fucker!"

He reached his other hand through the bars and grabbed her shoulders. She felt his face pressing against her ear.

"Goodbye, doll."

Then, with a sudden motion, Rorschach snapped her slim neck, and the little dark-haired woman collapsed against the bars. One more body amongst the foundations, it made little difference.

The other prisoners stared at Rorschach. He gazed back, slipping calmly out of his shirt.

"That's fucked-up, man," Pit opined.

"Get him. Now." Big Figure dropped his cigar and stomped it out on the floor.

"Comin' right up, boss," Lawrence wheezed, reaching down for the arc welder.

"Fat chance," Rorschach growled.

"'Fat'? You lousy little bastard, I-"

As Lawrence reached his large hands through the bars, Rorschach bound the meaty wrists swiftly with his shirt.

"We got a jail out here full of guys hate your guts," Lawrence wailed. "What in hell you got?"

"Your hands," Rorschach answered. "My perspective."

FINIS

****

A/N: Please review, gang. I want to know how I can improve this chapter. Thanks for sticking around until the end.

For all the fangirls and -boys, another sexy pic of JEH, this time walking the runway in Dolce & Gabbana with motorcycle boots (actually, he's taking a photo of Demi and Ashton with his Blackberry), but it still makes me...well, you get the point:

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